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-| CONSTITUTIOiNAL MEETING 

1 
1 



r A N E U I L H ALL, 



NOVEMBER 2Gth, 18o0. 



BOSTON: 

TRIXTED AT NO. 21 WATER STREET BY BEALS & GREEXE. 

1850. 



PROCEEDINGS 

>i4 



CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 



AT 



F A N E U I L HALL, 



NOVEMBER 26th, 1850. 



BOSTON: 

PRINTED AT NO. 21 WATER STREET BY REALS & GREENE. 

1850. 







0. 0/ 0. 



CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING. 



The Citizens of Boston and its vicinity, who reverence the 
Constitution of the United States ; who wish to discountenance 
a spirit of disobedience to the laws of the land, and refer all 
questions arising under those laws to the proper tribunals ; who 
would regard with disfavor all further popular agitation of subjects 
which endanger the peace and harmony of the Union, and who 
deem the preservation of the Union the paramount duty of every 
citizen, are requested to meet and express their sentiments on 
the present posture of pul)lic affairs, in Faneuil Hall, Nov. 26, 
1850, at 4 o'clock, P.M. 



The above call having been published in the newspapers, and 
posted up in the Merchants' Reading Room for some days, 
received the signatures of about five thousand citizens of Massa- 
chusetts, and the Meeting was convened agreeably to the request 
therein expressed. 

At a few minutes before four o'clock, the Committee of Ar- 
rangements came in, and were received with loud cheers. At 
four o'clock precisely, Thomas B. Curtis, Esq., mounted the 
rostrum, and said — 

Friends of the Union — friends of the Constitution : I am de- 
sired by the Committee of Arrangements to ask you to come to 
order, and to present for your sanction the following order of 
organization of this great meeting : 



4 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

For President. 

JOHN C. WARREN; 

a name dear in the annals of the Revolution, and connected 
with the history of Bunker Hill. 

For Vice-Presidents. 

DAVID HENSHAW, of Leicester, 
NATHAN APFLETON, of Boston, 
CALEB EDDY, of Boston, 
H. A. S. DEARBORN, of Roxbury, 
JOHN T. HEARD, of Boston, 
GEORGE G. SMITH, of Boston, 
ALFRED GREENOUGH, of Boston, 
SAMUEL LAWRENCE, of Boston. 

For Secretaries. 

Charles J. Hendee, of Roxbury, 
A. W. Thaxter, Jr., of Boston, 
George R. Sampson, of Boston, 
Joseph Smith, of South Boston, 
Ivers J. Austin, of Boston, 
Thos. J. Whittemore, of Cambridge. 

The meeting having been thus organized, the venerable Dr. 
Warren rose and spoke as follows. 

THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 

It is not without reluctance that I appear before this great 
assembly to take part in the political proceedings of my fellow- 
countrymen. Having from an early period of life devoted 
myself to professional duties, I have not entered actively into 
the politics of the day ; but I have never ceased to feel the 
deepest interest in the security and prosperity of our common 
country, and have ever considered, that, when these were in danger, 
it was my duty, as well as that of every good citizen, to devote 
mind and body to their protection and preservation. Such a 
crisis seems now to have arrived. The Union and, consequendy, 
the existence of this nation, are menaced, and, unless there is a 
great and general effort in their support, we may soon behold the 
mighty fabric of our government trembling over our heads, and 
threatening by its fall to crush the prosperity which we have so 
long and happily enjoyed. 

It has been my lot to have lived during a period when there 



AT FANLCIL HALL. 5 

was no Constitution and no Union ; wln-n tliore was no rotn- 
mercc, no inanuractmcs, little of aLcriciilturo, or of anv of the 
arts calculated to make a powerful and liappv people. It was a 
period when there was no sound currency, tiMcotifidencf! between 
man and man, no harmony in the action of the dith rent states. 
It was a |)eriod when men's hands were turned against their 
lu iirlihors, when the courts were beset with armed men, wh<'n 
law and justice were tramphul under foot, when oin- i)est towns 
and villages were threatened with pilla'^e, tire, and the sword; 
when the soil was pulluted witjj the blood of its own citizens. 
I remember the unorganized little band of fathers of families, 
who, in that emergency, issued Irom this place, feebly provided 
with artus or with the otiier means calculated to put down a dar- 
ing and desperate rebellion. \V'iiat a dark moment was this ! 
What dreadful forboding arose in the minds of those who had 
been c.\j)ending their labor, their treasure, and their blood for the 
safety of an unhai^in' comitrv ! 

But in th(^ midst of this gloom a ray of light showed itself. A 
Constitution was j)roposed, and, after a cautious investigation, 
and careful adaptation to the varied interests of the country, was 
adopted as a bond of everlasting union. Under this Constitution 
a new order of things has arisen. Commerce and agriculture 
iiave revived. Manufactures have everywhere grown up. Kdu- 
cation, literature, and science, have been ditiused in all our cities 
and towns. The highest prosperity has pervaded the nation, and 
presented to the wondering eyes of Europe the spectacle of a 
federal republic, free without licentiousness, and rich without 
luxury. 

Now, let me ask, is there any one desirous of returning to the 
disunion of 1786 ? Is there any one who is willing to trifle w ith, 
to spurn at, or to go behind this Constitution? If there is. I 
cannot go with him. I go for the whole Constitution and the 
whole Union, as the best security for the liberties of the jK'oj)le. 
For these I stand here ; and if I am not ready to exert every 
faculty which I possess to uphold and maintain them, I shall be 
false to the blood which runs in my veins, false to the ancestors 
from whom I am descended, and false to every sentiment of my 
own heart. I stand, then, at all hazards, for the Constitution 
and the Union, one and indissoluble, now and forever. 

Dr. Warren's speech excited great applause. 

THE RESOLUTIONS. 
W. W. Greenodgh, Esq., was now introduced, and said — 
" Fellow citizens — I liavc been requested to present fur the con- 



6 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

sideration of this meeting the following resolutions, prepared by 
the Committee of Arrangements" — 

Resolved, That the preservation of the Constitution and the Union is the 
paramomit duty of all citizens ; — that the blessmgs -which have tiowod from them 
in times past, which the whole country is now enjojing under them, and which 
we firmly bcUeve posterity will derive from them hereafter, are incalculable ; and 
that they vastly transcend ui importance all other political objects and con- 
siderations whatever. 

Resolved, That it woxild be folly to deny that there has been, and still is, 
danger to the existence of the Union, when there is prevalent so much of a spirit 
of disunion, constantly weakening its strength and alienating the minds of one 
part of the people of the United States from another ; and that if this feeling be 
not checked and restrained, and do not give way to a spirit of conciliation and of 
patriotic devotion to the general good of the whole country, we cannot expect a 
long continuance of the poHtical tic which has liithcrto made us one people ; 
but must rather look to see groiips of rival neighbouring republics, whose exist- 
ence will be a state of perpetual conflict and open war. 

Resolved, That all the provisions of the Constitution of the United States — 
the supreme law of the land — are equally binding upon every citizen, and upon 
every State in the Union ; — that all laAVS passed by Congress, in pursuance of the 
Constitution, are equally binding on all the citizens, and no man is at liberty to 
resist or disobey any one constitutional act of Congress, any more than another ; 
and that we do not desire or intend to claim the benefit of any one of the powers 
or advantages of the Constitution — and to refuse, or seem to refuse, to perform 
any part of its duties, or to submit to any part of its obligations. 

Resolved, That the adjustment of the measures which disturbed the action of 
Congress for nearly ten months of its last session ought to be carried out by the 
people of the United States in good faith, m all the substantial pro-Nisions ; 
because, although we may differ ^^ith each other about the details of those mea- 
sures, yet, in our judgment, a renewed popular agitation of any of the main 
questions then settled, would be fraught with new and extreme dangers to the 
peace and harmony of the country, which this adjustment has happily restored. 

Resolved, That every species and form of resistance to the execution of a 
regvdarly enacted law, except by peaceable appeal to the regular action of the 
judicial tribunals upon the question of its constitutionality — an appeal Avhich 
oughi never to be opposed or impeded — is miscluevous, and subversive of the 
fii'st principles of social order, and tends to anarchy and bloodshed. 

Resolved, That men, who, diiectly or indirectly, instigate or encourage those 
who are or may be the subjects of legal process, to offer violent resistance to the 
officers of the law, deserve the reprehension of an indignant community, and the 
severest punishment which its laws have pro\'ided for their offence ; and that we 
have entire confidence that any combination or attempt to fix such a blot upon 
the fair fame of our State or City, will be promptly rebuked and punished by 
an independent and impartial judiciary, and by firm and enlightened juries. 

Resolved, That we will at all times, in all places, and ujider all cu-ciun- 
stances, so far as o\u' acts or influence may extend, sustain the Federal Union, 
uphold its Constitution, and enforce the duty of obedience to the laws. 

SPEECH OF B. R. CURTIS, ESQ. 

B. R. Curtis, Esq,., moved the adoption of the resolutions, 
and spoke as follows — 

It is a source of great satisfaction to me, that I can stand here 
and say — not Fellow-Whigs or Democrats, but Fellow- Citizens; — 
that here I can meet on common ground, in an important emer- 
gency, those who have a common interest with me, in the coun- 
try. For I understand we have come here, not to consider par- 



AT FANEUIL HALL. 7 

ticular mcasnros of cfovcrninciit, but to assc^rt that wo have a 
Govorninciit ; not to (Ictcniiiiic \vli(;tlicr tliis or that law he wise 
or just, hut to (k'rlarc tliat then' j,s' hiw, and its (hitics and [)oW('r; 
not to consult whether this or that course of pohcy is beneficial 
to our country, but to say that wo yet Artvc a country, and intend 
to keep it safe. These are the objects for which I understand 
we have, as American citizens, here met, and for my own jiart, J 
cannot think we have come top;ther too soon. 

Tiiere is a very excited stale of the j)ul)lic mind all over tiicj 
country. It grows out of a subject of the last importance, so 
connected with the interests and sentiments and passions of our 
countrymen, as to make it dillicult for the wisest and coolest on 
either side, to restrain themselves within the limits of prudenc<'and 
moderation. Many good men. among us, with very tend(;r conscien- 
ces, but not very sound practical judgments, aj)parently not at all 
aware of the direction in which they are moving, or of the results 
to which they are tending, believing themselves to be as harmless 
as doves, and feeling, no doubt, quite sure they are as wise as 
serpents, have plunged into this contest. Others, who love excit- 
ment or notoriety, or influence and power, or who are smarting 
under disappointment, have found here a new field of promise. 
Others still, whose daily food is contention, and whose daily drink 
is the waters of strife, have rushed hither as into a quarrel, and 
brought with them temper and feelings which have been justly char- 
caterzied as " malignant philanthroj)y." While influencing more 
or less all these and thousands of others, who have sufl'ered them- 
selves to be led into this excitement, and lending a certain dignity 
and power even to the bad passions which are enlisted, is that 
deep and ineradicable love of human liberty, which beats in every 
throb of every heart of the true sons of New-England. 

And when we add to all this, that the people of other parts of 
our country, having opposite interests and passions, who, I believe, 
have never been remarkable for letting that excellent virtue called 
modq^ation, be known unto all men, have, upon this subject, 
used language and manifested feelings and done acts, which, I 
am sure, wise and good men everywhere must deeply regret, and 
that these things have j)roduced their natural consequences here ; 
we may not be greatly surprised, however deeply we may be con- 
cerned, at the existing state of things. 

In my humble judgment, it is a state of things calling for the 
sober and careful consideration of good citizens of all parties in 
the State, and for the public expression of a well-considered, 
temperate, but fixed opinion thereon. 

In times of public daiigcr, it was the usage of our fathers to 



8 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

come together in this hall, to embody and express tlie public sen- 
timent of this people concerning their important affairs. 

Is not this an occasion in wliich we may well imitate their ex- 
ample ? 

There has been heard within these walls, addressed to a public 
meeting, and received with approbation by that meeting, the de- 
claration that an article of the Constitution of the United States 
shall not be executed, Imv or no law. A gentleman offered a 
resolve, wiiich passed at a public meeting Aere, that " Constitution 
or no Constitution, law or no law, we will not allow a fugitive 
slave to be taken from Massachusetts." Here and elsewhere 
have been publicly uttered exhortations to violent resistance to 
law, and assurances of aid and succor in maintaining such resist- 
ance. The Chairman of a public meeting declared here that 
" the law will be resisted, and if the fugitive resists, and if he 
slay the slave-hunter, or even the Marshal, and if he therefore be 
brought before a Jury of Massachusetts men, that Jury will not 
convict him." Here and elsewhere has been promulgated the 
idea, that it is fit and proper for strangers coming from abroad 
on to our soil, to put themselves upon their natural rights, viewed 
according to their own human light, and by that light, arm, and 
resist unto blood the execution of the law of the Commonwealth. 
I speak not of any law of Congress, but of the Constitution, the 
supreme law of the land. The Chairman of a public meeting 
here has ventured to assure such persons that Judges and Jurors 
will violate their oaths, to protect them from punishment, and as if 
there should be nothins: wanting to exhibit the madness which has 
possessed men's minds, murder and perjury have been erected mto 
virtues, and in this City preached from the sacred desk. I must 
not be suspected of exaggerating in the least degree. I read, 
therefore, the following passage from a sermon preached and 
published in this city — 

Let me suppose a case "^hich may happen here and before long. A woman 
flies from South CaroUna to Massachusetts to escipe from bondage. Mr.*Great- 
heart aids her in her escape, liarbors and conceals her, and is brought to trial for 
it. The punisliment is a fine of One Thousand Dollars and Imprisonment for 
Six Months. I am drawn to serve as a Juror and j^ass upon this oifence. I may 
refuse to serve and be punished for that, leaving men with no scruples to take 
my place, or I may take the Juror's oath to give a verdict accorduig to the law 
and the testimony. The law is plain, let us suppose, and the testimony conclu- 
sive. Greatheart himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saA^ing one 
ready to perish. The Judge charges that if the Jurors are satislied of that fact, 
then they must retru'n that he is guilty. This is a nice matter. Here are two 
questions. The one put to me in my official capacity as Juror, is tliis — " Did 
Greatheart aid the woman r" The other, put to me in my natural character as 
man, is this — " Will you help to punish Greatheart with Fine and Imprisonment 
for helping a woman to obtain her unaUanable rights?" If I have extinguished 
my manhood by my Juror's oath, then I shall do my official business and find 
Greatheart gmlty, and I shall seem to be a true man ; but if I value my man- 



AT FANKL'IL HAFJ-. 3 

hood, I shall answer after my natviral duty to love a man and not hate him, to 
do him justice, not injustice, to allow liim the natural ri^jhtshehas not alienated, 
and shall say, " not tcuilty." Thou men will call rao forsworn and a liar, but I 
tliink human nature wdl justify tlie vcrdii-t. •••••• 

The man who attacks me to reduci? nic to slavery, in that moment of attack 
alienates liis rij^ht to liltv and if I were the fuj;itive, and could escape in no other 
way, I would kill liim with lus little compunction as I would drive a mustiuito 
from my face. — .1 ScniMn of Conscience, b;/ Rec. Theodore Parker. 

I should like to ask the Rev. Preacher, when he i^oes into 
Court and holds uj) his hand, and calls on his Maker to attest 
the sincerity of his vow to render a true verdict according to the 
law and the evidence, whether he does that, ns a man, or in sonic 
other capacity ? And I should also like to ask him, in what 
caj)acity he would expect to receive the j)unishnient which would 
await hiin here and hereafter, if he were to do what he recom- 
mends to others ? 

Is it not time that they who love their country, and respect 
the laws, shonld come toirether and soberly ponder these things ? 

If a case exists which demands a breach of a fundamental 
law of the Government, and justifies armed resistance by indi- 
viduals, it is a case for revolution, and it is time we knew and 
acted on it. 

If there is not such a case, then this language, and the feel- 
ings that prompt it, and the conduct which accompanies it, dis- 
grace our comnninity. and endanger its safety and peace, antl 
should receive the rebuke of every good citizen. There is no mid- 
dle ground between these two alternatives. If there is a case for 
forcible resistance of law, for refusal to execute one article in the 
compact which constitutes the Government, for vilifying this 
compact by names which I should he unwilling to repeat, for 
stirring up tiie angry passions of men, and arraying one part of 
the country against another part, it can be nothing less than a 
case for revolution, and in a revolution it must end, if its progress 
be not checked. 

Now I understand that those who act in concert on this subject, 
are dcvisible into two classes. One class openly avow that this 
is a case, for revolution. They say the Constitution of the United 
States contains an article which is immoral, and must not, under 
any circumstances, be obeyed ; — that as honest men they cannot 
undertake to abide by this comjiact, with a mental reservation, 
that they will break an important i)art of it. And therefore they 
reject the whole, and hold it to be the duty of this Common- 
wealth to withdraw itself instantly from this whole compact, and 
thus revolutionize the Government. This is the ground of action 
and the end of one class — the ground of action being, that there 
is a fimdamental error in the Constitution of the Government, 
and the end, that the Government must be destroyed. 

2 



10 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

Whatever else may be said of this, it cannot be denied that it 
is open, definite, tangible, capable of being seen and understood 
in its true proportions. These persons do not profess one thing 
and mean another. They do not move bUndly towards the gulf 
of civil discord and national destruction. They do not lead their 
followers towards it with boastful assurances that the ground is 
safe and clear. They see treason, and they honestly say so, and 
give their reason for it. 

In my humble judgment, it is time that reason were examined. 
You may say it needs no examination ; the bare statement of 
the proposition carries its own refutation with it. So I had sup- 
posed, until recent events changed my opinion. I do not think 
it important to examine their reason, because I entertain any 
hope of influencing any of this class of men whom 1 have men- 
tioned. I believe their passions are too much excited. But 
there is another larger class who are now acting with them, many 
of whom, I verily believe, do not see whither they are going. 
These have not thrown off" their allegiance to the Constitution. 
On the contrary, many of them hold, or have held, public office, 
and have sworn to support the Constitution. Many more, if we 
may judge from the recent elections, desire earnestly to take that 
oath. [Great laughter.] I am bound to think, and do think, 
they have taken this oath without any mental reservation. They 
include in it that article which promises that fugitives from service 
escaping into this State shall be given up. But, ask your Free 
Soil neighbours, " will you give your support to a law which shall 
fairly and fully execute this article — you are dissattisfied with 
the present law, but laying aside all questions about means and 
details — do you mean that Massachusetts shall keep this promise 
or break it ?" And depend upon it, if you get any answer at all, 
it will be that it is a promise not fit to be kept. 

I do not mean to say that all would so answer. Some have 
not sufficiently probed their own consciences to know what lies 
at the bottom, and some who have, may be willing to have this 
article executed. I hope there are many such. But I do believe 
that when it comes to the practical question, whether the -promise 
shall be kept, many will be found in the condition in which Sir 
William Blackstone says he was, in respect to a belief in witch- 
craft. For, says he, in substance, inasmuch as both the Scriptures 
and the laws of England recognise the crime of witchcraft, I 
cannot take it upon myself to deny that there has been such a 
thing, though I cannot give credit to any particular modern in- 
stance of it. 

So it is with some of these gentlemen. Inasmuch as the Con- 
stitution, which many of them have sworn to support, contains 



AT FANF.LIL IIAl.I,. 1 I 

an express promise that fiiLritivcs iVoin service sliall bo ijivcii up, 
they Ccinnot take it upon theinsehcs to (l(Miy, in the <^'eneral, that 
the promise is to be kept, but us to its being done in any particu- 
lar way, or by any j)articuhir mians, or in any modern instance, 
tliey cannot consent, and to prevent it they are ready to join 
their best and utmost exertions to those of the first chiss wImiui I 
have named ; tliough these latter all the time dech'jc that this 
distinction between the abstract and the concrete is too thin for 
their eyes to see. 

Now the real diflieulty witli l)()th these classes of persons is 
the same. Tiie ditVerence between them is, that one sees it and 
avows it ; the other does not see it, or is too prudent to avow it. 

Is it not fit then, that this supposed diliieulty shouhl be brou^rht 
out into the light of day and steadily looked at ? There ought 
to be no reluctance to do this. If the difficulty be real, it should 
be acknowledged, and due eftcet given to it. If it be unreal it 
should be dissipated. If the Constitution under which we live, 
is, as is expressed in the calm language so well befitting the dis- 
cussion of a subject deeply involving the welfare of so many 
millions of people, if it be a '• bond of hell,'' which it is the 
duty of every just man to break, we ought to know it and act 
on it. 

I hope you will bear with me, therefore, fellow-citizens, while 
I attempt to discuss this question. 

I am a Massachusetts man — born on her soil, bred in her 
schools, partaking, from my infancy to this hour, of the blessings 
which, under Providence, flow from, and are secured by her 
laws — and I hope I am not unmindful of the honor and the duty 
of the State. And I feel with you, a conmion interest to in- 
quire, whether, when this Commonwealth entered into this com- 
pact, and agreed that it should be the supreme law, it made a cove- 
nant of iniquity. 

Let me say at the outset, that this is not a question to be 
settled by calling hard names. It is a moral question — to be 
approached with calmness and solved by the reason and judgment 
of sober men. And I shall endeavour to state, as well as I can, 
that course of reasoning which has satisfied my own mind. 

Let me begin by asking you to keep in view that we are con- 
sidering the rights and duties of a civilized State. The question 
is, whether this Commonwealth, acted within the bounds of right, 
in 1783, when it entered into the compact in question. 

At that time, Massachusetts was an independent sovereign 
State, possessing, of course, all the powers over its own citizens 
in reference to foreign States, whicii constitute and arise from 
sovereignty. 



12 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

Among these powers two only are important here ; the power 
to make binding compacts with other States ; and the power to 
determine what persons from abroad shall be admitted to, or 
excluded from, the territorial limits of the state, and on what terms 
and conditions any such persons shall be allowed to come, or be 
required to depart. Both these powers are unquestionable. For 
centuries a succession of great minds have been employed upon 
this subject of public law. Beginning with Grotius above two 
hundred years ago, and ending with our countryman Wheaton, 
who died in this city two years ago, or with Lieber, if you please, 
who still lives, I believe there cannot be found anywhere a set 
of more profound, wise, humane, Christian moralists than these ; — 
men of great boldness of mind, restrained by no positive rules, 
seeking the moral truth of the great subjects they have discussed, 
by the best lights of divine and human wisdom. 

Yet not one of them, so far as I know, has ever doubted that 
the powers which I have mentioned rightfully exist, and are 
necessary for the preservation of every civilized State. 

There is another principle equally clear, and that is, that every 
State may and should exercise its powers for its own preservation, 
and the advancement of the welfare of its own citizens. 

Indeed, outside of this exciting subject, all these principles 
are not only unquestioned, but they have been acted on by this 
Commonwealth, over and over again, to the acceptance of every 
body. 

As early as 1793, this Commonwealth passed a law prohibiting, 
under a severe penalty, any shipmaster from landing in this 
State any foreign convict ; and this has ever since been, and is 
now, the law. What right had the State to pass this law ? The 
right to protect its public peace, and the persons and property 
and morals of its citizens ; and to exercise its own discretion as 
to what persons from abroad might prove injurious to either. 

In 1830 it was found Ireland was pouring upon our shores a 
tide of pauperism and disease. The victims of centuries of op- 
pression and wrong, came hither to seek relief and succor. 
Poor-houses and hospitals were emptied of their contents, which, 
at the public expense, were transported hither. Did any man 
doubt the rightful authority of the Legislature to put a stop to 
this ; to say that these persons, however ground down by oppres- 
sion and distress at home, must not be thrown upon our hands ? 
No one, that I ever heard of, doubted it. On the contrary, very 
stringent laws were passed, whicli we have been struggling ever 
since to maintain against the exclusive power of Congress over 



AT FANEUIL HALT,. 13 

comnicrco. What right lias the State to pass these laws ? I 
answer again, the right of self-protection — the right to (leterinine 
what persons from abroad shall be admitted to its territory — the 
right to use its own discretion and consult the safety ;iiid welfare 
ot its citizens, in admitting or cxcliidinLr them. 

Let me borrow an ilhistration out of this very subj(.ct of 
slavery. We all know that in every Slave-holding State there 
are thousands of slaves who, from age, disease, or infirmity, are 
mere burthens. Now, we have heard some angry talk about 
retaliatory legislation. Suppose Carolina and CJcorgia should 
pass laws that if any such aged, diseased, or infirm slaves de- 
sired, with the consent of their masters, to come to Massachu- 
setts, they should be transported hither at the public expense. 
I wonder if a Free-Soil Legislature would consider itself i)ower- 
less to prevent this State from being overwhelmed by such an 
irruption ? 

I have been attempting to illustrate, what really requires no 
illustration. The princii)lcs are clear. Every sovereign State 
has, and must have, the right to judge what persons from abroad 
shall be admitted, and this and all other powers the State is 
bound to use for the safety and welfare of its own citizens. 
Taking along with us these principles, I ask you to go back with 
me to that Convention, which assembled in this city on the 9th 
day of January, 1788, to consider whether this State should 
adoj)t the proposed Constitution. We are in the presence of no 
ordinary assembly. In the chair is John Hancock, the man w^ho 
in 1775 threw his name and his fortune into the scale of the 
Colony, at the beginning of its contest with the Crown, and who, 
whatever else may be said of him, was always true to the revolu- 
tion. There is Theophilus Parsons, who has sounded all the 
dcptlis of j)ublic and private law. There is Samuel Adams, not 
im|)ioperly called the Cato of America, his whole soul filled with 
the idea of human liberty, and popular rights, upon whose ears 
the sounds of the guns at Lexington fell with sweeter tones than 
the songs of birds in that morning of sj)ring. There, too, were 
Gerry aiul Varnuni, and Gore, Ames, and Bowdoin, and Sed"-- 
wick of Stockbridge, the soldier, the jurist, the ardent patriot, the 
true philanthopist, who by his professional exertions had just 
before struck the last blow at negro slavery in Massachusetts, 
and a crowd of able, ju8t, and wise associates, fresh from tho. 
deep and intensely interesting discussions concerning jioliiical 
and civil liberty, wliich originated and accompanied and lollowed 
the war of the revolution. The question is, whether these men 



14 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

were so ignorant, or so blind to their duty as legislators, as citi- 
zens, and as men, as to make, in behalf of this Commonwealth, a 
compact so grossly immoral, that their children may not fairly 
execute it, but must now overthrow and destroy the work of their 
hands. Let us see — 

In the first place, it was known to them and is certain, that 
the Union could not be formed and the Constitution adopted, 
without this article. 

In the next place, they believed, and we know, that it was im- 
possible to over-estimate the importance of this Union, and this 
Constitution to the people whom they represented. The Con- 
federation had proved powerless for good. The public debt of 
the country, due chiefly to the Officers and Soldiers of the Revo- 
lution, of whom this State furnished so large a part, could not 
be paid. 

The commerce of the country was in the utmost disorder. 
Each State had its own navigation laws, and imposts, and was 
already using these powerful and exciting instruments in a man- 
ner hostile to every other State. An insurrection against the laws 
in this fState, known as Shay's rebellion, which seriously threaten- 
ed, not only the existence of our Government, but the general 
peace of the country, and was connected with risings both in New 
Hampshire and Connecticut, had just been quelled with great 
difficulty. Great Britain, from whose grasp we had escaped in 
open contest, was now waiting to see us prostrated by internal 
struggles, and from the great heart of Washington was extorted 
the exclamation, " What, gracious God, is man ! that there should 
be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct. It is 
but the other day we were shedding our blood to obtain the Con- 
stitutions under which we live — Constitutions of our own choice 
and making — and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn 
them. The thing is so unaccountable that I hardly know how to 
realize it, or to persuade myself that I am not under the illusion 
of a dream." 

This was the state of public affairs under which, in January, 
1788, this Convention assembled. They foresaw that this great 
instrument presented for their adoption would accomplish what it 
has accomplished — that it would form a more perfect union — 
that it would establish justice — that it would ensure domestic 
tranquility — that it would provide for the common defence — that 
it would promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of 
liberty to the people of this Commonwealth, and their posterity. 

On tiie one hand were the evils, on the other the benefits — and 
they were called on to choose between them for the people of 
this Commonwealth during countless generations. 



AT FANEt'IL HALL. 15 

Now. let IKS snpposo that some one had l)eGri mad enough to 
rise in thai Convcntioii, and say, " I sv.a th»jse evils — ihoy are 
great now, and threaten to become intolerable. I see these bene- 
fits ; I believe this Constitution will pfTlonn for Massachusetts 
all that it promises. But I (1cm\ that Massachusetts, as a sover- 
eign and civilized State, has the rightful pow(.'r to make this 
compact. For here is a stij)ulation in it that j)ersons held to 
service in States now foreign to us, escaping hither, shall be 
given up to be carried back again." 

I cannot pretend, fellow-citizens, to give any idea of the treat- 
ment which such an ol)j('cti(Hi would have received from the 
great and powerful minds of that Convention. I believe they 
would not have left a vestige of it on earth — no, nor the material 
to make a ghost of, to rise from regions below, and frighten some 
of their descendants. But it needs no uncommon ability and 
discermnent to see sufTicient answers to this objection. 

In the fust ])lace, are not these persons foreigners as to us — 
and what right have tiiey to come here at all, against the will of 
the legislative power of the State? And if their coming here, 
or remaining here, is not consistent with the safety of the State 
and the welfare of the citizens, in the name of all that is rational, 
may we not prohibit their coming, or send them back if they 
come. 

If we have a riglit to say to those who have been ground down 
by the oppression of England, you must not land on our shores, 
because your presence here is injurious to us, have we not a right 
to avoid enormous evils and secure incalculable benefits, not 
otherwise attainable, by a comj)act, one article of which agrees, 
that our State shall not be an asylum for fugitives from service ? 

To deny this, is to deny the right of self-preservation to a 
State. It strikes at the heart of every civilized community. It 
makes its preservation impossible — and throws us back at once 
into a condition billow the most degraded savages who have a 
semblance of govermnent. 

No sane man can reflect, and then make such a denial : so 
that there can be but one possible question, and that is simj)Jv a 
question whether the emergency was such as called for the exer- 
cise of the power. Upon this (piestion also, unless we overturn 
principles necessary to the existence of civil society, it is imj)os- 
sible to doubt that we are precluded and justly bound by the 
action of the State in 1788. Has not a State the right to make 
compacts and treaties — and when they are made arc they not to 
be kept ? 

May the State make a j^romise to-day, and to-morrow sa\', 
*' On the whole, our interest did not require that promise, and it 



16 CONSTITUTIONAL. MEETING 

is not to be kept ?" If it be the test of a just man that though 
he promise to his harm, he keeps his promise good, is it not also 
apphcable to a State ? But in truth, there is no occasion to rely 
on any such obligation, for if it be once admitted that this Com- 
monwealth in 1788 had the rightful power to assent to the Con- 
stitution, there cannot be two opinions among those who know 
the facts that the requisite emergency existed. 

I am not about to repeat what I have already said respecting 
that emergency. You know what it was. You know that the 
great duty of justice could not otherwise be performed ; that our 
peace at home, and our safety from foreign aggression could not 
otherwise be insured ; and that only by this means could we 
obtain the blessings of liberty to the people of Massachusetts, 
and their posterity. I may add what now is a great and glorious 
motive, which our fathers anticipated, and our eyes have seen, 
in no other way could we become an example of, and a security 
for, the capacity of man, safely and peacefully and wisely, to 
govern himself, under free and popular Constitutions. But I 
wish to ask your attention particularly to one thing, which is more 
intimately connected with this subject. 

I undertake to say, that men of forecast must then have fore- 
seen, and subsequent events have demonstrated, and it is now 
known, that without an obligation to restore fugitives from ser- 
vice. Constitution or no Constitution, Union or no Union, we 
could not expect to live in peace with the Slaveholding States. 

You may break up the Constitution and the Union to-morrow ; 
you may do it by a civil war, or by what I could never under- 
stand the method or the principles of — what is called a peace- 
able secession ; you may do it in any conceiveable or incon- 
ceivable way ; you may draw the geographical line between 
slaveholding and non-slaveliolding anywhere ; but when we shall 
have settled down, they will have, their institutions, and we shall 
have ours. One is as much a fact as the other. One engages 
the interests and feelings and passions of men as much as the 
other. And how long can we live in peace, side by side, without 
some provision by compact, to meet this case ? Not oiie year. 
Any reflecting man can satisfy himself of this, by turning his 
mind upon the facts ; and hislory proves it. As early as 1643, 
when the country was a wilderness, and the movement of per- 
sons from one part to another unfrequent and exceedingly diflicult, 
the Colonies of Massachusetts and Plymouth, Connecticut and 
New Haven, found it necessary, even in that primitive and im- 
perfect union which they founded to stay themselves against 
destruction, to insert an article substantially like this one : '• Tiiat 
if any servant run away from his master, into any of the con- 



AT FANEUII. HALL. 



federate juris lictioiis, thai in such case, (upon certilicato from 
one Md^^islrate in the jurisdiction out of wliicli ihti sl;jviiI 
fled, or upon olhcr due proof.) the said servant shall l)o cither 
dehvereil to liis master, or any other that j)ursu('s, and hrin --s 
such certificate and proof." 

But we need not pause upon this very early e.\|)erieiice of our 
New England ancestors. The Government of the United States 
had not been in oj)eration two yi-ars, when th<; necessity of some 
such |)rovisio;i, in some form, to preserve; tiic |)eace of horderiii^f 
independent States was clearly |)roved. Y'ou know that in I7H1) 
Florida belonged to Spain, and stretched aloni^ the southern bor- 
der of Georgia. Well, Gen. Wasiiington hud /lot been two years 
in ofHce when the people of southern Geori^ia became so uneasy 
on account of the escape of their slaves across the l)order into 
Florida, as to make very urijfent representations to the National 
Government, demanding redress. And thereupon orders were 
obtained from the Spanish Court to arrest the further reception 
of the fugitives, and to make restitution ; and President Wasli- 
ington sent a s|)ecial messenger into Florida to see to the execu- 
tion of these orders. 

It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this. If any one in this age 
expects to live in peace, side by side with the slaveholding 
States, without some effectual stipulation as to the restoration of 
fugitives, he must either be so wise as to foresee events in no 
way connected with human experience, or so foolish as to reject 
experience and probabilities as guides of action. 

I know it may be said, " Let the contest come. We are ready 
for it. Let the blood of the slaughtered be upon the heads of 
those who are in the wrong." When I look abroad over a 
hundred thousand happy homes in Massachusetts, and see a peo- 
ple, such as the blessed sun has rarely shone upon — so intelligent, 
educated, moral, religious, progressive, and free to do everything 
but wrong ; when I call to mind its admirable Constitution of 
government, and that it comes as near to perfection as the 
lot of humanity permits ; when I remember that these things 
are the free gifts of that awful Being, who holds peoples and 
nations in the hollow of his hand, I fear to say that I should 
not be in the wrong to put all this at risk, because our passionate 
will impels us to break a promise which our wise and good fathers 
made, not to allow a class of foreigners to come here, or to send 
them back if they come. 

With the rights of those persons I firmly believe Massachusetts 
has nothing to do. It is enough for us that they have no right 
to be here. Our peace and safety they have no right to invade ; 
whether they come as fugitives, and being here, act as rebels 

3 



18 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

against our law, or whether they come as armed invaders. 
Whatever natural rights they have, and I admit those natural 
rights to their fullest extent, this is not the soil on which to 
vindicate them. This is our soil — sacred to 0U7' peace — on 
which we intend to perform oui' promises, and work out for the 
benefit of ourselves and our posterity and the world, the destiny 
which our Creator has assigned to us. So far as He has suppHed 
us with the means to succor the distressed, we, as Christian men, 
will do so, and bid them Vielcome, and thank God that we have 
the means to do it. But we will not act beyond those means ; 
we will not violate a solemn compact to do it ; we will not do it 
by holding up our hands an.d swearing to render a verdict accord- 
inj*- to the law and the evidence, and then knowingly violate that 
oath ; we will not plunge into civil discord to do it ; we will not 
shed blood to do it ; we will not so throw away the rich gifts 
which He has conferred upon us, not for our benefit alone, but 
in trust for the countless generations of His children. 

In my judgment, these are not means which He has confided 
to us to enable us to succor the needy and the oppressed of other 
States, and, so far as depends upon ine, these means shall never 
be used. 

SPEECH OF THE HON. B. F. HALLETT. 

Mr. President and Fellow- Citizens — In the presence of this 
strong, and calm, and energetic meeting ; after the resolutions 
that have been read, the clear and eloquent argument with which 
they have been enforced by the gentleman who has just left your 
greetings, and the unmistakeable expression of your sentiments, 
we can now say at home and abroad that there is no law of these 
United States which cannot be executed in Massachusetts. 

If there was doubt before there can be no doubt now, and if 
there be any wild enough hereafter to resort to a fancied higher 
law to put down law, they will find in your determined will a 
stronger law to sustain all the laws of the land. 

I am aw^are, Sir, that I may be supposed to stand here some- 
what in a representative character from the personal relations I 
hold to a party always national in its principles and measures 
wherever the Union is concerned ; and I may be pardoned for 
saying, that to be associated with, and to deserve the approbation 
of its true men, is the dearest and highest ambition of my heart. 
It becomes me, therefore, if in my power, to say and do nothing 
that shall be unworthy of them or of this great occasion ; and I 
feel the strongest assurance that however imperfectly I may dis- 
charge this trust, I can commit them only to themselves and to 



AT FANKIII. HAI.L. | •) 

their cause, when I plcdii^e liiat jKirty, as far as I may, to the 
CoiistitiitiDU, the Uiiioii. and thf whole C<)uiitr\' ! 

It is trood, then, for us to be Jicre t(j-dav. There are occasions 
and assuredly this is one, when it is well to for^^ut that we belong 
to parties or sections, and to remember only that we are citizens 
of the United States. 

The j)ur|)ose of this meetin<^f and the spontaneous call of five 
thousand names which combines so mucji of the moral, phvsical. 
pecuniary, and intellectual strength of this communitv, all jjoiut 
to the Union, its preservation and the supremacy of its laws. 

Thouiih no man severs himself from his |)arty by comini^ here 
to-day, nor ])ledires himself to any new one, vet every riirht- 
minded citizen must feel that there are occasions in wlii(-h his 
country rises above all party, and when the true nien of all parties 
are bound to unite in an expression of public sentiment that 
shall give renovated strength to the bonds of our Union, and 
renew the solemn vows and engagements we have made, and 
which our fathers entered into for us, that whenever and 
wherever a question arises between Union and disunion, law or 
no law, a section of the country or the whole country, we will 
be found on the side of the Union, the laws, and an united 
country. 

Such occasions have presented themselves before to-day, to 
test the strength of the Union and the supremacy of an unpojHi- 
lar law over a popular sentiment. I mean unpopular in one sec- 
tion and popular in another section of these States, and in all these 
crises the laws and the Union have triumphed over all local or 
sectional interest arrayed against them. 

Mr. President, just about eighteen years ago, one of the most 
numerous and weighty assemblages that ever gathered in this hall 
since the revolution, came together to pledge themselves to the 
support of the Constitution and of the la\> s for the collection of 
the tariff' revemie, then threatened with nullification liy a single 
southern State. Then Massachusetts insisted on the cnlorccmcnf 
of a law which she regarded as essential to her property and 
industry, but which South Carolina detested. 

Now, the threatened in/llification comes from Massachusetts 
upon a law which she mat dislike but which not only South 
Carolina but the whole South insist, is vital to the protection of 
their property and mdustry. And shall Massachusetts nullify 
that law is the question .' 

But it is said that there is no crisis and no call at present for a 
demonstration of the friends of the Union, and that there are no 
disunionists in New England ! If, indeed, there be none, then 
are we all unanimous for the Union and lor upholding its laws, 



20 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

and it surely can do harm to proclaim it to the world and from 
Faneuil Hall that we are the friends of the Union, ready to 
abide by and sustain the laws of the Union, and anxious 
to remove all disturbing causes that may here or elsewhere tend 
to its dissolution. In a word, that we go not only for the integ- 
rity of the Union, but for the peace of the Union. But are we 
sure that the Union is safe while extremes North and South con- 
tinue to agitate and indulge in mutual criminations, and especially 
while we see in our midst a strong attempt making to direct 
public opinion in the course of what is termed by its advocates 
a peaceful resistance to law, but which can be peaceful only just 
so long as all who do not oppose a certain law, permit these 
peaceful mobs and meetings to have their own way in prostrating 
that law, and substituting for all laws they happen to dislike an 
undefined " higher law," of which every man is to be his own 
expounder, and to act as judge, jury, and executioner ! 

Sentiments that have gone forth from , this hall, or from any 
place or meeting in Massachusetts, adverse to the Union or the 
supremacy of law, should not be allowed, unrebuked, to form 
one jot of the public opinion of this Commonwealth, and should 
be met with an unequivocal expression of the friends of the Union 
who mean by the Union, the whole Union, and by the laws we 
are sworn to maintain, the whole laws. And we are here to-day 
for the purpose of calmly and resolutely giving that expression 
as citizens of the thirty-one United States, and as lovers of the 
Union without distinction of party. 

This alone is a sufficient reason for the call that has brought 
together this large assemblage. 

If it be said tjiat the Whig party is the party of Union, and 
that alone can preserve it — that the Democratic party is the party 
of Union, and that only can uphold it, so much the better for the 
country. Then the Union will be safe whichever party may 
predominate in the nation, and surely if both the great parties 
have the same aim and end in view in preserving the Union, 
they will have more strength when both unite together in that 
sacred purpose, and they will present an impregnable barrier in 
every section and in every State, against the encroachments of 
those who may seek to undermine the Constitution or divide the 
Union into sectional, conflicting, geograi)hical parties. But on 
the other hand, if a democratic sectional party, or a whig sec- 
tional paity, or an exclusively sectional Southern or sectional 
Northern party should predominate, or even hold the balance 
of power in the Union, who would guarantee its endurance for 
a single session of Congress. 

We cannot shut our eyes to facts unless disposed to be wilfully 



AT FANF.fll, ll\f,l,, 21 

blind. Diirinc: the longest session in whicli the Contrress of the 
United States have been totrellicr in onr history, this very (lucsiioii 
of Union and disniiion has engaged their whole attention. 'I'hey 
have at last brought about a series of eomproniise aeis as 
peace measures, whicii, like the compromises that established 
tlie Conslitulion originally, arc l)eliev(>d to be the onlv m^ans 
that can perpetuate the Union ; and now the question for us to- 
day is, whether we will in good Aiith abide by and carry out 
these peace measures, or whether we shall rush into renewed 
agitation and sink the whole useful legislation of the country, in 
a sectional conHict which all the signs of the times indicate, 
cannot continue much longer, and we remain, as we now are, 
one people. 

The single fact that these peace measures of compromise are 
denounced by the extremes of both sections, is the highest evi- 
dence that they are such as the ])atriotism and the good sense of 
the calm and considerate should approve. If we go to either 
extreme and that prevails, it must inevitably shatter the Union. 
If we stand on the middle ground, we stand on a platform broad 
enough to cover the whole country, and strong enough to tijjhold 
and sustain it, without a single fragment being broken off. 

And now what higher or holier purpose can call together the 
citizens of the United States, in all its cities, towns, and borders, 
than to renew our pledges to stand by the Union, and the laws, 
at this time and in these days, when we find in one section of 
the Union its value not only calculated, but pronounced worth- 
less, and in another section resort is had to a new form of moral 
treason, which assumes, by the mysterious power of an unknown 
"fiigher law'' to trample down all law ? 

If ever the legacy of Washington to his countrymen had 
meaning and pm-pose, it now comes home to us in his solemn 
warning to " indignantly frown upon (lie first dawning of every 
attempt to alienate one portion of our count ry from the rest, or 
to enfeeble the sacred ties which bind together the various 
parts.'' 

Who that lo' es his country can conceal from his judgment the 
conviction that there has come upon us. not onlv the dawning 
of this attempt, but its progress almost lo the nuMidian, and if it 
is suflercfl to reach the point of its political culinniation before 
its decline, that decline can only happen with the decline and 
fall of the American rejmblic. 

It was to give strength to these States and to make us one 
people, that VVashin^'ton hff his retirement in 17^7, when he 
was chosen a delegate from V'irginia to the Convention to form 
the Constitution, and in his own language on that occasion, he 



22 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

<' reluctantly consented to serve, in order to assist in averting the 
consequences of that contemptible figure which the American 
communities were about to make in the annals of mankind, with 
their separate, independent, jealous State sovereignties." 

The question comes home to us to-day, whether by acquies- 
cence in measures that the best wisdom of Congress has devised 
to quiet and settle the Union, we shall lend our aid to avert the 
like catastrophy, which must happen now, if the Constitution of 
our fathers, framed by the best men the country ever saw, is lost 
to us, to freedom, and to the world, by the sectional divisions 
that have already strained it to its utmost tension. 

Mr. President, it is a singular fact that we are here to-day 
deliberating upon an issue which threatens the Union and endan- 
gers the supremacy of its laws, that had no place in the deliber- 
ations or the apprehensions of the wise men who formed and 
adopted the Constitution. 

The fourth article of the Constitution, which provides for the 
delivery of fugitives from labor, was scarcely discussed in the 
Convention, and was adopted by the unanimous vote of every 
State, and every delegate from every State without a dissenting 
vote from the North. In the Massachusetts Convention of 1788, 
upon whose action then depended the ratification of the Consti- 
tution by the requisite number of States, not a word was uttered 
by the most jealous opponents of the Constitution against that 
provision. The whole and only discussion touching slavery 
turned upon the provision permitting the importation of slaves 
for twenty years, (a measure much more repugnant than that we 
are called on to permit to be enforced,) and the enumeration of 
slaves in the representation. 

And yet, when all was considered, it met the approbation of 
the wisest men that ever lived among us. Judge Dana said — 
" From a survey of every part of the Constitution, I think it the 
best that the wisdom of men could devise ;" and the Rev. Mr. 
Backus, an apostle of that day and generation, declared that 
" such a door is now opened for the establishment of righteous 
government, and for securing equal liberty, as was never before 
oftered to any people upon earth." 

If the enlightened and righteous conscience of such a man, 
revered among a large denomination of Christians (the Baptists) 
as a Father in the faith, saw no cause of oflence in the compact 
then formed between. the North and the South, can we expect to 
find a purer guide in those consciences of our time which aftect 
to see nothing but immorality and crime in the compromises our 
fathers entered into in order to form a more perfect Union, and 
secure the blessing of liberty to us and our posterity ? 



AT FANEIII, HAI.L. '23 

It is instructive too, to rccnll tin; fact tliat the only coniiiion 
principle, the only Union platform upon whicji our fatjiers could 
meet antl make that Constitution, was the identical i^round upon 
which the friends of the Union, of all parlies, now at/rce to stand, 
viz: noii-ijitirveiition with the domestic concerns of each Slate, 
and a full rccoi^nition of the only safe republican dortrine' of free 
iiovermnent, viz : the riii;ht of every State to establish its own 
form of government, provided it be republican, and to regulate its 
own modes of labor, and all its internal concerns. 

As a single instance jicrmit me to ([note the language of Major 
General Heath in the iNIassachusetts Convention, one who had 
fought bravely for the liberties he knew so well how to preserve. 
Upon this very question of slavery he said — '' If we ratify the 
Constitution shall we do anything by our acts to keej) the blacks 
in slavery, or shall we become the partakers of other men's 
sins ? I think neither of them. Each State is sovereign and 
independent to a certain degree, and they have a right and will 
regulate their own internal atVairs as to themselves appear 
proper ; and shall we refuse to cat or drink, or be united with 
those who do not thiidv or act just as we do ? Surely not." 

Now, if one extreme at the South claim more than is in the 
Constitution for their peculiar institution of slavery, and if ano- 
ther extreme at the North deny and resist what is plainly in the 
Constitution in order to sustain their peculiar institution of Abo- 
litionism, where shall the friends of Union take their stand but 
on the middle ground, the broad platform of the rights of the 
States in their domestic relations and good faith in carrying out 
the pledges of the Constitution and the laws made to enforce 
them ? 

Allow me to remark on one point, for it is only one that I 
intend to touch upon in the j)rovisions of the Fugitive Law, 
which some of our fellow citizens have avowed in this hall, 
is to be treated like the Stamp Act and never to be enforced 
in Massachusetts. 

If that means anything, it means just what our fathers meant 
when they resisted the Stamp act and threw the Ira overboard — 
Revolution. It is revolution or it is treason. It is rightful revo- 
lution if in the exercise of the reserved sovereignty of the peo- 
ple, it puts down one government, and by organic laws frames 
another. That is the only American theory of the higher law 
that is not rebellion, but a sacred right of the j)eople. But if it 
only resists law, and obstructs its otiicers, while it seeks no new 
organic form of government through tlic collected will of the 
people, it is treason, rebellion, mobism, and anarchcy, and he 
who risks it must risk hanging for it. 



24 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

It is the liiglier law of Daniel Shays in the rebellion of 1786, 
who, with thirteen writs on his back for debt, assembled an 
armed mob to stop the courts, and sent his message to the judges 
of the supreme court then about to hold their session in Spring- 
field, ordering them not to open their court, nor to indite the 
rebels. The judges of that day answered, as I am sure the judges 
of this day, and the commissioners too, if need be, (I can speak 
for one of them) would answer a like message from the modern 
hi'i-her law party, " that theij ivould faithfully execute the laws 
of the country agreeably to their oatlis.^' 

But the point to which I would refer in the Fugitive Bill, and 
the one most insisted on as repugnant to New England feeling 
is, that it calls upon the citizens to aid the slave taker in capturing 
the fugitive. I do not so understand it. No man is called upon 
or can be called upon unless there is resistence to the execution 
of a process law. If no citizen resist the laws, no other citizen 
except the officer with his warrant, will be called upon to lift a 
finger. Now, suppose tlie officer is resisted, the prisoner rescued, 
the court invaded, the witnesses assaulted, the magistrate driven 
from his seat, and you are called on to sustain the supremacy of 
the law or the despotism of the mob ! Which side will you take ? 
law or anarchy, the magistracy or the mobocracy ? That is the 
practical question, and that you must answer. 

Repugnance to the execution of a law, legal defence by all 
legal and constitutional means in trials under the law, is one 
thing. That you may have and do and be good citizens. But 
resistence to the law and its officers, is quite another thing. 
That you cannot indulge in and be safe to the rest of the com- 
munity if allowed to go at large. Again, if just persons enough 
to resist law are encouraged and protected in that resistence even 
by a few, and the rest of the community fold their hands and let 
the laws be overthrown by force, that is anarchy ; and by the same 
rule you may be turned out of your own houses and lands by 
houseless and landless men appealing to their higher law of in- 
heritance from Adam ! Remember the old proverb, for all law- 
less means to put down law are like chickens that always come 
home to those who rear them, to roost. 

Mr. President, I have incidentally alluded to the Shay's rebel- 
lion, so memorable in our history as a test of Constitutional law, 
and whether it should be construed by the mob or the legal tri- 
bunals. INIassachusetts went through that crisis in 1786, just six 
years after the adoption of her State Constitution. We all know 
the result and how nobly the Constitution of the State was sus- 
tained then, as the Constitution of the United States will be now, 
here in our midst. 



AT FANEIIL HALL. tiO 

Tlicie is an incident in that liistory most honorable to Boston 
and its vicinity, and a glorious precedent for wjiat we are doing 
here this day, with an energy and unanimity worthy of the de- 
scendants of the men of tiiose trotiblous timts. At that crises in 
the atl'airs of the new Ccinmonwcalth, wjicn at least a third part 
of tiie citizens either aitled or would not |)rcvent the resistance 
made to the sittings of the courts, the inhabitants of Boston, loyal 
to the Constitution, assembled together in aid of the laws. They 
addressed the Governor, and in the most unequivocal manner 
declared their determination to co-operate in su[)i)ort of Consti- 
tutional Government. They also sent a circular to the inhabi- 
tants of every town in the State, and held up the sacred pledges 
of life and fortune made to support a Constitution which was as 
estimable as the blood that had purchased it. 

Most of the replies from the towns conveyed a union of senti- 
ment and a tender of aid to suj)port the Constitution, and from 
that hour the rebellion fell off. 

Two years after this, Massachusetts adopted the Constitution 
of the United States, and well did that lesson of stern experience 
teach her its inestimable value. 

And now, sixty-two years from that eventful day, we, the citi- 
zens of Boston and vicinity are called upon to uphold and per- 
petuate what our fathers so dearly purchased and so wisely 
framed. 

It well becomes us then, to aj)peal to the people of this Com- 
monwealth so to act and so to guide public opinion as to give to 
our sister States the renewed pledge that Massachusetts is in 
the Union and will abide in the Union — that her patriotism 
is not selHsh nor her philanthropy fanatical, but that she will put 
down nullification of unj)Oj)ular laws in her own borders with as 
firm and faithful purpose as rallied her citizens in this hall in 
December, 183-2, to sustain the proclamation of Andrew Jackson 
in putting down nullilication of a law even more unpopular in 
South Carolina. 

And from Faneuil Hall shall go forth this day a voice that will 
carry to all our fellow citizens of this State and of these Uiiited 
States, an earnest appeal to them by all they value in this blessed 
Union — by all they Itope to preserve as a law-abiding peo[)le ; by 
all they dread of anarchy and lawless depredation, and by all 
they would leave of good to their children, to come up in the 
strength of the mighty to the support of the Constitution and the 
suprcmacv of the laws. 



26 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

SPEECH OF S. D. BRADFORD, ESQ. 

Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens — I hold in my hand a 
note from the Committee of Arrangements of this Meeting, which 
I received yesterday, inviting me " to meet them punctually at 
4 o'clock at Faneuil Hall, and to make a short address." I have 
interpreted this to mean that if it would not exceed fifteen min- 
utes you would listen to me ; and I will endeavour not to exceed 
the time mentioned. 

In rising to address you upon this important occasion, I feel 
oppressed by a sense of the responsibility I have assumed, and 
must throw myself entirely upon your candor and kindness. 
After the profound, spirited and eloquent addresses to which you 
listened from the learned and talented gentlemen who have pre- 
ceded me, it would be presumptuous on my part to enter upon a 
Constitutional argument, or to attempt more than a glance at the 
interesting subjects which have been discussed. I am proud to 
say that I belong to the great Democratic party, but I have not 
come here to-day as a Democrat or a Whig, or as belonging to 
any party or organization whatever, but as an American citizen, 
to take part and act in concert with good and true men of any 
and every party to sustain the Union, the Constitution and 
the Laws. I rejoice to see before me such a large number of my 
fellow-citizens, who, having left their usual engagements and 
pursuits, have come forward and filled this vast hall to overflowing. 
It cannot be any ordinary occasion which has produced such a 
gathering as this. It reminds one of days gone by, when our 
country being engaged in a disastrous war with Great Britain^ 
and the ships of the enemy almost within our harbor, the people 
were accustomed to come up here to take counsel together for 
the safety and welfare of the Republic. The country, thank 
God, is not attacked by any foreign foe. We are at peace 
with all the world so far as our foreign relations are concerned ; 
but unhappily we have an enemy within, and in our very 
midst, that has destroyed the peace and happiness of more 
nations than foreign war, pestilence, and famine ; and that is the 
spirit of disunion and insubordination to the laws. 

The country is prosperous beyond all former precedent, labor 
is well paid, the people are employed, our commerce is upon 
every sea, we have passed the Rocky mountains and acquired a 
vast empire upon the shores of the Pacific. All Europe is looking 
upon our progress and growth, our institutions and laws with 
admiration and envy ; and yet, strange to say, there are persons 
amongst us, and I regret to add, American citizens too, who seem 
to place no value upon all these blessings, and who are doing all 



AT FANEUIL HALL. 27 

they can to destroy our glorious Union, lowliicli we are indebted 
for all these privileges. 

They would enter the tein|)le of Ijlxrty raised hv the han<ls 
of our forefathers after so many years of lal)or and saerifiee, throw 
down the pillars which sujjport it, and scatter the broken frag- 
ments to tlie winds. 

And why, permit me to ask, must the Constitution, the charter 
of our libijrties, the work of Washini^^ton, Franklin, Adams, Jef- 
f( rson, and of the other illustrious statesmen and sa,u:es who 
formed it, be destroyed ? The answer is, because according to 
them it contains an article opposed to what is called in the cant 
of the day " the higher law,'' which forbids, they allege, the 
restoration to his master and owner of a fugitive slave. We 
have been living under this article of the Constitution and un;ler 
the law of 1793 made to enforce it and signed by Washington, 
fifty-seven years, and until very recently have heard of no com- 
plaint against it ; but now all at once the cry is raised by some 
persons that it is unconstitutional and must be resisted even unto 
blood, and to the dissolution of the Union. Where, let me in- 
quire, have these fanatics with such tender consciences been 
living during all this long period ? Have they, like Rip Van 
Winkle been asleep in the Kaatskill mountains, not twenty, but 
fifty-seven years, and they have just awoke on the eve of the 
recent elections ? I have remarked on former occasion-; that the 
qualms of their consciences have been periodical, as Kean the 
actor once said, the taste for Shakspeare w as in Boston ; and they 
were always most distressing a short time previous to the second 
Monday in November. 

But have they read the Fugitive Slave Bill of the last session, 
and compared it with that of 179."3 ? If they will do so, they 
will find it rather a recognition of an old law with the addition 
of certain needful amendments than a new one. It was not 
passed hastily, as some have asserted, but was discussed in the 
senate during four long summer days from the 19th to the '23d 
August, section by section, and received the sanction of some of 
the greatest and best men in the nation. The yeas and nays 
were many times called for, and the latter seldom exceeded 
eleven, whilst the former were double or treble that number. 
The opposition to it in the senate, so far as one can judge by a 
rejjort of the sj)eeches, (I do not say it invidiously) was feeble 
and inelhcient. The im|)ression left upon the mind of the reader 
is that the gendemen, who spoke against it, were acting under a 
restraint, perhaps imposed by the Legislatures of the States to 
which they belonged. 

" But no individual in the senate,'" to use the words of Mr. 



28 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

Clay, " was hardy enough to maintain that a Fugitive Slave 
ought not to be returned to his owner and lawful master." 

Should any one be of the opinion that parts of the Fugitive Bill 
of 1850 are more stringent than that of 1793, he should remember 
its enactment would not have been called for, had the old law 
been enforced in accordance with its true spirit, and as Washing- 
ton, who signed it, intended it should be. Do you, can you be- 
lieve for a moment that it would have been sustained by Mr. 
Clay, General Cass, Mr. Foote, and by the other distinguished 
statesmen in the senate who advocated it, had they believed it 
unconstitutional or unjust? Who does not know that the law of 
1793 has been pronounced constitutional by Chief Justice Taney, 
by Mr. Justice Story, and by many other profound jurists who 
might be named ; and as respects the Bill of 1850, Mr. W^ebster, 
who long since was proclaimed the " Defender of the Constitution," 
and has now acquired, and justly too, the honorable title of 
"Champion of the Union," has not only declared it to be consti- 
tutional, but has also said " that no one whose opinion was worth 
regarding, has pronounced it otherwise." The same opinion has 
been given bv the distinguished counsellor Mr. Curtis, to whom 
we have all had the pleasure of listening to-day, and who, every 
citizen of Boston knows, holds the very first place in his profes- 
sion here. He must be a bold man, who would venture to 
oppose his individual opinion to such authority as this. But then 
the objection is made that if the Fugitive Slave Bill be constitu- 
tional, it is after all opposed to what is called the " higher law." 
This phrase " higher law," perverted as it has been by fanatics, 
is fast becoming a byword. Its real meaning is nullification, re- 
pudiation, or abolitionism ; and we all know what these words 
mean. But may not a law be too high ? 

I remember to have seen in a conspicuous place in Florence, 
in Italy, an elevated column surmounted by a figure of justice 
with the scales ; and I also remember that a citizen of Florence 
passing by it, and seeing a foreigner gazing at it, is said to have 
remarked to him that " Justice ivas so high in Florence that no 
one could reach it.^^ The same charge, I strongly suspect, may 
be made against " the higher law of the Nullifiers and Abolition- 
ists. It is above justice, for it refuses to return the property of 
our brethren of the South when found within our precincts. 
Well ! what then, fellow-citizens, is to be done in this crisis of 
our public affairs ? Does any one believe that the South will 
continue to remain in the Union unless the Fugitive Bill be car- 
ried into effect according to its true spirit ? Can we expect it ; 
or should we respect our brethren in the South, were they to re- 
main indifferent spectators of the violation of the law ? It must 



AT FAM-.ITI. HALL. 29 

then, 1)C carried into efTect ; '• j>(':iceal)ly if wo ran, foniMy if 
wo must;" or the Union will bo dissolvod, and tlio nation will he 
plunged into all the horrors of anarchy, and probably of civil 
war. Can it be that we have those anionj^t us, and Ann'rican 
citizens too, who would raise thoir paracidal hands ap^ainst the 
iilossod luion, the work of our fr)refathers, and the foundation of 
that nobjo structure on'ctod upon it the United States of Atuorica? 
It is dillicult to realize it, or at au}- rate that tiioy can be found 
in Massachusetts, the State which struck the first blow for liberty 
and independence in ITT.j. liut if it be otherwise, and the spirit 
of disunion and fanaticism cannot be extinguished in any other 
way, we all remember what was done in IS'Vi by that hero, 
patriot, and statesman. President Jackson, during a crisis in some 
respects resembling the present, and how nobly the country sup- 
ported him, both Whigs and Democrats. The proclamation he 
issued will never be forgotten by Americans, and will ever hold a 
hiirh. if not the highest, place in the archives of the nation. But 
he was prepared, and delennincd too, to execute the laws by the 
other means, had that appeal proved insufliciont. Let the mem- 
orable words which he used then, " the Union, it must be pre-^ 
served,'^ be our watchword now ; and let us frown indignantly 
upon every one (whatever may be the party name under which 
he may range himself.) who would lay liis sacriligious hands 
upon the ark of our safety, the Union of the States. Let us no 
longer inquire so much of candidates for office, are you Whigs 
or Democrats ; are you for protection or free trade ; for a large 
expenditure of the i)ublic money for internal improvements, or a 
small one ; but rather let us put these questions to them, are you 
for obeying the laws of your country, or for breaking them ; are 
you in favor of jeopardizing the Union by a further agitation of 
the slavery question ; or will you do all you can to give peace 
and quiet to the distracted country, of which it stands so much in 
need. Let us support them or otherwise, according to the 
answer they may give. 

In this way only may we still preserve our glorious and once 
happy Union, and hand it down with all its blessings to succeed- 
ing generations. 

SPEECH OF THE HON. RUFUS CHOATE. 

I feel it, fellow citizens, to be quite needless, for any purpose 
of affecting your votes now, or your judgment and acts for the 
future, that I should add a word to the resolutions before you, 
and to the very able addresses by whicli thoy have been explain- 
ed and enforced. All that I would have said has boon better 
said. In all that I would have suggested, this great assembly, so 



30 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

true and ample a representation of the sobriety, and principle, 
and business, and patriotism of this city and its vicinity, — if I 
may judge from the manner in which you have responded to the 
sentiments of preceding speakers, — has far outrun me. In all 
that I had felt and reflected on the supreme importance of this 
deliberation, on the reality and urgency of the peril, on the in- 
dispensable necessity which exists, that an effort be made, and 
made at once, combining the best counsels, and the wisest and 
most decisive action of the community — an effort to turn 
away men's thoughts from those things which concern this 
part or that part, to those which concern the whole of our 
America — to turn away men's solicitude about the small politics 
that shall give a state administration this year to one set, and the 
next year to another set, and fix it on the grander politics by 
which a nation is to be held together — to turn away men's hearts 
from loving one brother of the national household, and hating 
and reviling another, to that larger, juster and wiser affection 
which folds the whole household to its bosom — to turn away 
men's conscience and sense of moral obligation from the morbid 
and mad pursuit of a single duty, and indulgence of a single sen- 
timent, to the practical ethics in which all duties are recognised, by 
which all duties are reconciled, and adjusted, and subordinated, 
according to their rank, by which the sacredness of compacts is 
holden to be as real as the virtue of compassion, and the supre- 
macy of the law declared as absolute as the luxury of a tear is felt 
to be sweet — to turn away men's eyes from the glare of the lights 
of a philanthrophy — they call it philanthropy — some of whose 
ends be may specious, but whose means are bad faith, abusive 
speech, ferocity of temper, and resistance to law ; and whose 
fruit, if it ripens to fruit, will be woes unnumbered to bond 
and free, — to turn all eyes from the ghtter of such light to the 
steady and unalterable glory of that wisdom, that justice, and 
that best philanthrophy under which the states of America have 
been enabled and may still be enabled to live together in peace, 
and grow together into the nature of one people, — in all that I 
had felt and reflected on these things, you have outrun my 
warmest feelings and my best thoughts. What remains, then, 
but that I congratulate you on at least this auspicious indication, 
and take my leave ? One or two suggestions, however, you will 
pardon to the peculiarity of the times. 

I concur then,^rs^, fellow-citizens, with one of the resolutions, 
in expressing my sincerest conviction that the Union is in ex- 
treme peril this day. Some good and wise men, I know, do not 
see this ; and some not quite so good or wise, deny that they see 
it. I know very well that to sound a false alarm is a shallow and 



AT FANEUIL HALL. 31 

contemptible tliin<^. But, I know, also, that too much prcraution 
is safer than too httlo, and I l)('licv(! tliat loss than ihc utmost is 
too little now. Better, it is said, to ho ri(licul(>d for loc) much 
care, than to bo ruined by too confident a semrity. 1 have then 
a profound conviction, that the Union is yet in danircr. It is 
true that it has passed through one peril within the last few 
months — sucli a peril, that the future historian of America will 
pause with astonishment and terror when he comes to record it. 
The sobriety of tlie historic style will rise to eloquence — to pious 
ejaculation — to thanks^ivin<jjs to Almi/jfhty God — as he sketches 
that scene and the virtues that trium|)hed in it. " Honor and 
praise," will he exclaim " to the (Muinent men of all parties" — 
to Clay, to Cass, to Foote, to Dickinson, to VW'bster — who rose 
that day to the measure of a true greatness — who remembered 
that they had a country to preserve as well as a local constituen- 
cy to trratify — who laid all the wealth, and all the hopes of illus- 
trious lives on the altar of a hazardous i)atriotism — who reck- 
oned all the sweets of a present j)oi)ularity for nothini; in com- 
parison of that more exceedinu: weii^dit of glory which follows him 
who seeks to compose an agitated and save a sinking land." 

That night is passed, and that peril ; and yet it is still night, 
and there is peril still. And what do I mean by this ? I believe, 
and rejoice to believe, that the general judgment of the people is 
yet sound on this transcendant subject. But I will tell you where I 
think the danger lies. It is, that while the people sleep, politicians 
and philanthoj)ists of the legislative hall — the stump, and the 
press — will talk and write us out of our Union. Yes — while you 
sleep, while the merchant is loading his ships, and the farmer is 
gathering his harvests, and the music of the hannner and shuttle 
wake around, and we are all steeped in the enjoyment of that 
vast and various good which a common government places within 
our reach — there are influences that never sleep, and which are 
creating and ditl'using a public opinion, in whose hot and poi- 
soned breath before we yet perceive our evil plight, this Union 
may melt as frost work in the sun. Do we sufhciently appreci- 
ate how omnipotent is opinion in the matter of all government ? 
Do we consider espcciaily in how true a sense it is tlie creator, 
must be the ui)holder, and may be the destrover of our Initial 
(irovernment? Do we often enougii advert to the distinction, that 
while our State (Tovermncnts must exist almost of necessity and 
with no efiort from within or without, the Union of the States 
is a totally difibrent creation — more delicate, more artificial, more 
recent, far more truly a mere production of the reason and the 
will — standing in far more need of an evcr-surrounduig care, to 
j)reserve and repair it, and urge it along its highway r Do we 



32 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

reflect that while the people of Massachusetts, for example, are 
in all senses one — not E Pluribus Unum — but one single and 
uncompounded substance, so to speak — and while every influence 
that can possibly help to hold a social existence together — identity 
of interest — closeness of kindred — contiguity of place — old 
habit — the ten thousand opportunities of daily intercourse — every 
thing — is operating to hold such a State together, so that it must 
exist whether we will or not, and cannot, but by anniliilating, die — 
the people of America compose a totally different community — a 
community miscellaneous and widely scattered — that they are 
many States, not one State, or if one, made up of many which still 
co-exist — ^that numerous influences of vast energy, influences of 
situation, of political creeds, of employments, of supposed or 
real diversities of material interest, tend evermore to draw them 
asunder — and that is not, as in a single State, that instinct, cus- 
tom, a long antiquity, closeness of kindred, immediate contiguity, 
the personal intercourse of daily life and the like, come in to 
make and consolidate the grand incorporation whether we will or 
not — but that is to be accompUshed by carefully cultivated and 
acquired habits and states of feeling, by an enlightened discern- 
ment of great interests, embracing a continent and a future 
age — by a voluntary determination to love, honor, and cherish, 
by mutual tolerance, by mutual indulgence of one another's 
peculiarities, by the most politic and careful withdrawal of our 
attention from tlie offensive particulars in which we differ, and 
by the most assiduous developement and appreciation, and con- 
templation of those things wherein we are alike — do we reflect 
as we ought, that it is only thus — by varieties of expedients, by a 
prolonged and voluntary educational process, that the fine and 
strong spirit of nationality may be made to penetrate and ani- 
mate the scarcely congruous mass — and the full tide of American 
feeling to fill the mighty heart ? 

I have sometimes thought that the States in our system may be 
compared to the primordial particles of matter, indivisible, inde- 
structible, impenetrable, whose natural condition is to repel each 
other, or, at least, to exist, in their own independent identity — 
while the Union is an artificial aggregation of such particles — a 
sort of forced state, as some have said of life — a complex struc- 
ture made with hands, which gravity, attrition, time, rain, dew, 
frost not less than tempest and earthquake, co-operate to waste 
away, and which the anger of a fool — or the laughter of a fool — 
may bring down in an hour — a system of bodies advancing slowly 
through a resisting medium, operating at all times to retard, and 
at any moment liable to arrest its motion — a beautiful, yet fragile 
creation, whic'i, a breath can unmake, as a breath has made it. 



AT FANEUII. HALL. 33 

And now, chari^cd with the trust of holdinjx top^ethrr such a 
nation as this, what iiave we seen ? What do we sec to-day ? 
Exactly \h\<. It iias been, for many nioiiths. years, I inav sav, 
but, assuredly for a lon:^^ season, the peculiar infelicity, say, rather 
terrible misfortune of this country, that the attention of the peo- 
ple has been fixed without the res[)ite of a moment, exclusively 
on one of those subjects — the only one — on which we disaL^ree 
precisely accordinijr to jj^eographical lines. And not so onlv, but 
this subject has been one — urdikc tariff, or internal improvements, 
or the disbursement of tiie public money, on whicji the dispute 
cannot be maintained, for an hour, without heat of blood, mutual 
loss of respect, alienation of regard — menacing to end in hate, 
strong and cruel as the grave. 

I call tiiis only a terrible misfortune. I blame liere and now, 
no man, and no policy for it. Circumstances have forced it upon 
us all : and down to the hour that the series of compromise 
measures was completed and presented to the country, or cer- 
tainly to Congress, I will not here and now say, that it was the 
fault of one man, or one region of country, or one party more 
than another. 

" But the pity of it, lago — the pity of it." 

How appalling have been its effects ; and how deep and 
damning will be his guilt, who rejects the opportunity of recon- 
cilement, and continues this acciused agitation, without neces- 
sity for another hour 1 

Why, is there any man, so bold or blind, as to say he believes 
that the scenes through which we have been passing, for a year, 
have left the American heart where they found it ? Does any 
man believe that those afiectionate and respectfid regards, that 
attachment and that trust, those " cords of love and bands of a 
man'' — which knit this people together as one, in an earlier and 
better time, are as strong to-day as they were a year ago ? Do 
you believe that there can have been so tremendous an appara- 
tus of influences at work so long, some designed, some undesign- 
ed, but all at work in one way, that is, to make the two great 
divisions of the national family hate each other, and yet have no 
efiect ? Recall what we have seen in that time, and weigh it 
well ! Consider how many hundreds of speeches were made in 
Congress — all to show how extreme and intrepid an advocate the 
speaker could be of the extreme Northern sentiment, or the ex- 
treme Southern sentiment. Consider how many scores of thou- 
sands of every one of those speeches were printed and circulated 
among the honorable member's constituents, — not much else- 
where — the great mass of whom agreed with him perfectly, and 
5 



34 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

was only made the more angry and more unreasonable by them. 
Consider what caballings and conspirings were going forward 
during that session in committee rooms and members' chambers, 
and think of their private correspondence with enterprising wait- 
ers on events. Turn to the American newspaper press, secular 
and religious — every editor — or how vast a proportion ! trans- 
formed into a manufacturer of mere local opinion — local opinion — 
local opinion — working away at his battery — big or little — as if 
it were the most beautiful operation in the world to persuade one 
half of the people how unreasonable and how odious were the 
other half. Think of conventions sitting for secession and dis- 
memberment, by the very tomb of Jackson — the " buried maj- 
esty" not rising to scatter and blast them. Call to mind how 
many elections have been holden — stirring the wave of the peo- 
ple to its profoundest depths — all turning on this topic. Remem- 
ber how few of all who help to give direction to general sentiment, 
how few in either House of Congress, what a handful only of 
editors, and preachers and talkers, have ventured anywhere to 
breathe a word above a whisper to hush or divert the pelting of 
this pitiless storm, — and then consider how delicate and sensitive 
a thing is public opinion, — how easy it is to mould, and color, 
and kindle it, and yet that when moulded, and colored, and fired, 
not all the bayonets and artillery of Borodino can maintain the 
government which it decrees to perish ; and say if you have not 
been encompassed, and are not now, by a peril, awful indeed ! 
Say if you believe it possible that a whole people can go on — a 
reading and excitable people — hearing nothing, reading nothing, 
talking of notiiing, thinking of nothing, sleeping and waking on 
nothing", for a year, but one incessant and vehement appeal to 
the strongest of their passions, — to the pride, anger and fear of 
the South, to the philanthropy, humanity and conscience of the 
North, — one-half of it aimed to persuade you that they were cruel, 
ambitious, indolent, and licentious, and therefore hateful ; and 
the other half of it to persuade them that you were desperately 
and hypocritically fanatical and aggressive, and therefore hateful 
— say, if an excitable people can go through all this, and not be 
the worse for it ! I tell you nay. Such a year has sowed the 
seed of a harvest, which, if not nipped in the bud, will grow to 
armed men, hating with the hate of the brothers of Thebes. 

It seems to me as if our hearts were changing. Ties the 
strongest, influences the sweetest, seem falling asunder as smok- 
ing flax. I took up, the day before yesterday, a religious news- 
paper, published in this city, a leading Orthodox paper, I may de- 
scribe it, to avoid misapprehension. The first thing which met 
my eye, was what purported to be an extract from a Southern 



AT FANF.ni, HAM.. ^7) 

religious newspaper, denouncing the Boston fdiior, or oiu- of liis 
contributors, as an infirlel — in just so mauv words — on the Laourid 
that one of his anti-slavery ariruiucnts implied a doctrine incon- 
sistent with a certain text of the New Testament. Sur<'lv. I 
said to myself, the Christian thus denounced, will be deeply 
wounded by such misconstruction ; and as he lives a thousand 
miles away from slavery, as it really does not seem to be his busi- 
ness, as it neither picks his pocket nor breaks his leg, and he may, 
therefore, atlbrd to be cool, while his Southern brother liv(,s in 
the very heart of it, and may, natmally enough, be a little more 
sensitive ; he will try to soothe him, and win him, if he can, to 
reconsider and retract so grievous an objurgation. No such 
thing! To be called an infidel, says he, by this southern Pres- 
byterian, I count a real honor ! lie thereupon |)rocee<ls to de- 
nounce the slaveholding South as a downriglit Sodom — leaves a 
pretty violent implication that his Presbyterian antagonist is not 
one of its few righteous, whoever else is — and without more ado 
sends him adrift. Yes, fellow-citizens, more than the Methodist 
Episcopal church is rent in twain. But if these things are done 
in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry ? If the spirit 
of Christianity is not of power sutlicient to enable its avowed pro- 
fessors to conduct this disputation of hatred with temper and 
decorum — to say nothing of charity — what may we expect from 
the hot blood of men who own not, nor comprehend the law of 
love ? 

I have spoken what I think of the danger that threatens the 
Union. I have done so more at length than I could have wished, 
because I know that upon the depth of our convictions and the 
sincerity of our a|)prehensions upon this subject, the views we 
shall take of our duties and responsibilities, must all depend. 

If you concur with me that there is danger, you will concur with 
me in the second place that, thoughtful men have something to 
do to avert it; and what is that? It is, not in my judgment, 
fellow-citizens, by stereotyped declamation on the utilities of the 
Union to South or North that we can avert the danger. It is not 
by shutting our eyes and cars to it that we can avert it. It is not 
by the foolish prattle of '• O ! those people olf there need the 
Union more than we, and ^vill not dare to quit." It is not by 
putting arms akimbo here or there and swearing that we will 
stand no more bullying ; and if any body has a mind to dissolve 
the Union, let him go ahead. Not thus, not thus, felt and acted 
that generation of our fathers, who, out of distracted counsels, 
the keen jealousies of States, and a decaying Nationality, by 
patience and temper as admirable as their wisdom, constructed 
the noble and proportioned fabric of our Federal .system. " O • 
rise some other such !" 



36 COXSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

No, fellow-citizens — there is something more and other for us 
to do. And what is that ? Among other things, chiefly this — to 
accept that whole body of measures of compromise, as they are 
called, by which the Government has sought to compose the 
country, in the spirit of 1787 — and then, that henceforward every 
man, according to his measure, and in his place, in his party, in 
his social, or his literary, or his religious circle, in whatever may 
be his sphere of influence, set himself to suppress the further 
political agitation of this whole subject. 

Of these measures of compromise, I may say in general, that 
they give the whole victory to neither of the great divisions 
of the country, and are therefore the fitter to form the basis of a 
permanent adjustment. I think that under their operation and 
by the concurrence of other agencies it will assuredly come to 
pass, that on all that vast accession of territory beyond and above 
Texas, no slave will ever breathe the air, and I rejoice at that. 
They abolish the slave trade in the district of Columbia, and I re- 
joice at that. They restore the fugitive to the master — and while I 
mourn that there is a slave who needs to run, or a master who 
desires to pursue, I should be unworthy of the privilege of ad- 
dressing this assembly, if I did not declare that I have not a 
shadow of doubt that Congress has the Constitutional power to 
pass this law just as it is, and had no doubt before I listened to the 
clear and powerful argument of Mr. Curtis to-night ; that it was 
out of all question their duty to pass some effectual law on the 
subject, and that it is incumbent on every nian who recognizes a 
single obligation of citizenship, to assist, in his spheres, in its 
execution. 

Accepting, then, these measures of Constitutional compromise, 
in the spirit of Union, let us set ourselves to suppress or mitigate 
the political agitation of slavery. 

And in the first place, I submit that the two great political 
parties of the North are called upon by every consideration of 
patriotism and duty to strike this whole subject from their respec- 
tive issues. I go for no amalgamation of parties, and for the 
forming of no new party. But I admit the deepest solicitude 
that those which now exist, preserving their actual organization 
and general principles and aims — if so it must be — should to this 
extent coalesce. Neither can act in this behalf effectually alone. 
Honorable concert is indispensable, and they owe it to the coun- 
try. Have not the eminent men of both these great organizations 
united on this adjustment? Are they not both primarily nation- 
al parties? Is it not one of their most important and beautiful 
uses that they extend the whole length and breadth of our land, 
and that they help or ought to help to hold the extreme 



AT FANEUIL HALL, 37 

North to the extreme South by a tie strontjer almost than that 
of mere patriotism, by that surest cement of friendship, common 
opinions on iho irreat concerns of the R('|)nblic r You arc a De- 
mocrat ; and have you not for thirty-two years in liflv, united 
uith the universal Democratic j)arty in the choice of Southern 
Presidents ? Has it not been your function for even a larger 
part of the last half century to rally with the South for the sup- 
port of the General Administration ? Has it not ever been your 
boast, your merit as a j)arty, that you are in an intense, and even 
characteristic decree, national and unionist in your spirit and 
politics, althouijh you had your orii^in in the assertion of State 
rights ; that you have contributed in a thousand ways to the ex- 
tension of our territory and the establishment of our martial 
fame ; and that you follow the llag on whatever field or deck it 
waves ? — and will you for the sake of a ten)j)orary victory in a 
State, or for any other cause, insert an article in your creed and 
give a direction to your tactics which shall detach you from such 
companionship and unfit you for such service in all time to come ? 

You arc a Vv'hig — I give you my hand on that — aiul is not 
your party National too ? Do you not lind your fastest allies at 
the South ': Do you not need the vote of Louisiana, of North 
Carolina, of Tennessee, of Kentucky, to defend you from the 
redundant capital, matured skill, and pauper labor of Europe ? 
Did you not just now, with a wise contempt of sectional issues 
and sectional noises, unite to call that brave, firm and good Old 
Man from his plantation, and scat him with all the honors in the 
place of Washington ? Circumstances have forced both of tiiese 
parties — the Northern and the Southern divisions of both — to sus- 
pend for a space, the legitimate objects of their institution. For 
a space, laying them aside, and resolving ourselves into our in- 
dividual capacities, we have thought and felt on nothing but 
slavery. Tiiose circumstances exist no longer — and shall we not 
instantly revive the old creeds — renew the old ties, and by manly 
and honorable concert, resolve to spare America that last calam- 
ity, tlie formation of parties according to geographical lines ? 

1 maintain, in the second place, that the Conscikncc of this 
community has a duty to do, not yet adequately performed ; and 
that is, on grounds of moral obligation, not merely to call up men 
to the obedience of law — but on the same grounds to discourage 
and modify the further jigitation of this topic of slavery, in the 
spirit in ichich. thus far. that agitation has been conducted. I 
mean to say, that our moral duties, not at all less than our politi- 
cal interests, demand that we accept this compromise, and that 
we promote the peace it is designed to restore. 

Fellow-citizens, was there ever a development of sheer fanaticism 



38 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

more uninstructed, or more dangerous than that which teaches that 
conscience prescribes the continued pohtical, or other exasperating 
agitation of this subject ? That it will help, in the least degree 
to ameliorate the condition of one slave, or to hasten the day of 
his emancipation, I do not believe, and no man can be certain 
that he knows. But the philanthropist, so he qualifies himself, 
will say that slavery is a relation of wrong, and whatever be- 
comes of the effort, conscience impels him to keep up the agita- 
tion till the wrong, some how, is ended. Is he, I answer, quite 
sure that a conscience enlightened to a comprehension and com- 
parison of all its duties impels him to do any such thing ? Is he 
quite sure that that which an English or French, or German phil- 
anthropist might in conscience counsel or do, touching this mat- 
ter of Southern slavery, that that also he, the American philan- 
thropist, may, in conscience, counsel or do ? Does it go for no- 
thing in his ethics, that he stands, that the whole morality of the 
North stands, in a totally different relation to the community of 
the South from that of the foreign propagandist, and that this 
relation may possibly somewhat — aye, to a vast extent, modify all 
our duties ? Instead of hastily inferring that, because those 
States are Sistei' iStates, you are bound to meddle and agi- 
tate, and drive pitch-pine knots into their flesh and set them on 
fire, may not the fact that they are Sister States, be the very rea- 
son why, though others may do so, you may not ? In whomso- 
ever else these enterprises of an offensive and aggressive moral- 
ity are graceful, or safe, or right, are you quite sure that in you 
they are either graceful, or safe, or right ? 

I have heard that a great statesman, living in the North, but 
living and thinking for the country, has been complained of tor 
saying that we have no more to do with slavery in the South, than 
with slavery in Cuba. Are you quite sure that the sentiment 
went far enough ? Have we quite as much to do, — I mean can 
we wisely or morally assume to do — quite as much with Southern 
as with Cuban slavery ? To all the rest of the world we are 
united only by the tie of philanthropy, or universal benevolence, 
and our duties to that extent flow from that tie. All that such 
philanthropy prompts us to print, or say, or do, touching slavery 
in Cuba — we may print, say, or do, — for what I know or care, 
subject, I would recommend to the restraints of common sense, 
and taking reasonable thought for our personal security. But to 
America — to our America, we are united by another tie, and 
may not a principled patriotism, on the clearest grounds of moral 
obligation, limit the sphere and control the aspirations, and pre- 
scribe the flights of philanthropy itself? 

In the first place, remember, I entreat you, that on considera- 



AT FANEIII. HALL, 39 

tions of policy and wisdom — truest policy, profoundost wisdom, 
for the greater good and the higher glory of America — for the 
good of tiio master and skive, now and for all generations — von 
liave entered with the Southern States into th(> most sacred, and 
awful, and tender of all the relations, the relation of coinitr\ ; 
and therefore, that you have, expressly and by implication, laid 
yourselves under certain restraints ; you have |)led^fed yourselves 
to a certain measure, and a certain spirit of forbearance ; vou 
have shut yourselves out from certain fields and higlnvays of phil- 
anthropic enterprise — o{)en to you before, open to the rest of the 
world now ; — but from which, in order to bestow larger and 
mightier blessings on man, in another way, you have agreed to 
retire. 

Yes, we have entered with them into the most sacred, salutary, 
and permanent of the relations of social man. We iiavc united 
with them in that great master performance of human beings, 
that one work on which the moralists whom I love concur in sup- 
posing that the Supreme Governor looks down with peculiar com- 
placency, the building of a Commonwealth. Finding themselves 
side by side with those States some sixty years ago in this new 
world, thirteen St<'\tes of us tiien in all ! thirty-one to-day — 
touching one another on a thousand points — discerning perfectly 
that unless the doom of man was to be reversed for them, there 
was no alternative but to become dearest friends or bitterest ene- 
mies — so niuch Thucydides and the historians of the beatitiful and 
miserable Italian republics of the middle age had taught tiiem — 
drawn together, also felicitously, by a common sj)eech and blood, 
and the memory of their recent labor of glory — our fathers 
adopted the conclusion that the best interests of humanity, in all 
her forms, demanded that we should enter into the grand, sacred, 
and tender relations of country. All things demanded it — the 
love of man, tjie hopes of liberty — all things — " One hope, one 
lot, one life, one glory." Hereby, only, can America bless her- 
self, and bless the world. 

Consider, in the next place, that to secure that largest good, to 
create and preserve a country, and thus to contribute to the hap- 
piness of man as far as that grand and vast instrumentality may 
be made to contribute to happiness, it becam^ indispensable to 
take upon themselves, for themselves, and for all the generations 
who should follow, certain engagements with those to whom we 
became united. Some of these engagements were express. 
Such is that for the restoration of persons owing service accord- 
ing to the law of a State, and Hying from it. That is express. 
It is written in this Constitution in terms. It was inserted in it, 
by what passed, sixty years ago, for the morality and religion of 



40 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

Massachusetts and New England. Yes ; it was written there by 
men who knew their Bible, Old Testament and New, as thorough- 
ly, and reverenced it and its Divine Author and his Son, the Sa- 
viour and Redeemer, as profoundly as we. Others of those en- 
gagements, and those how vast and sacred, were implied. It is 
not enough to say that the Constitution did not give to the new 
nation a particle of power to intermeddle by law with slavery 
within its States, and therefore it has no such power. This is 
true, but not all the truth. No man pretends we have power to 
intermeddle by law. But how much more than this is implied in 
the sacred relation of country. It is a marriage of more than 
two, for more than a fleeting natural life. " It is to be looked on 
with other reverence." It is an engagement, as between the real 
parties to it, an engagement the most solemn, to love, honor, cher- 
ish and keep througli all the ages of a nation. It is an engage- 
ment the most solemn, to cultivate those affections that shall 
lighten and perpetuate a tie which ought to last so long. It is 
an engagement then, which limits the sphere, and controls the 
enterprises of philanthropy itself. If you discern that by violat- 
ing the express pledge of the Constitution, and refusing to permit 
the fugitive to be restored ; by violating the implied pledges ; by 
denying the Christianity of the holder of slaves; by proclaiming 
him impure, cruel, undeserving of affection, trust and regard ; 
that by this passionate and vehe- ment aggression upon the pre- 
judices, institutions and investments of a vvliole region — that by 
all this yoa are dissolving the ties of country ; endangering its 
disruption ; frustrating the policy on which our fathers created it ; 
and bringing into jeopardy the multiform and incalculable good 
which it was designed to secure, and would secure — then, what 
ever foreign philanthropy might do, in such a prospect — your 
philanthropy is arrested and rebuked by a " higher law." In 
this competition of affections, Country — ■' omnes omnium chari- 
tates C07nplectens," the expression, the sum total of all things 
most dearly loved, surely holds the first place. 

Will anybody say, that these engagements thus taken, for 
these ends, are but covenants v/ith hell, which there is no morali- 
ty and no dignity in keeping? From such desperate and sham.e- 
less fanaticism — if such there is — I turn to the moral sentiments 
of this assembly. It is not here — it is not in this hall — the blood 
of Warren in the chair — the form of Washington before you — 
that I will defend the Constitution from the charge of being a 
compact of guilt. I will not here defend the Convention 
which framed it, and the Conventions and people which adopted 
it, from the charge of having bought this great blessing of coun- 
try, by immoral promises, more honored in the breach than the 



AT FANKUn. »ALL. 41 

observance. Thank God. we yd hold thai that transaction was 
honest, that work beautiful and pure ; and those engagements, in 
all their leni^th, and brea llh, and heii,'!it, and de{)th. sacred. 

Yet, I will say that, if to the formation of suc!i a Union, it was 
indispensable, as wo know it was, to contract thcsa en.;a 'em ;nt3 
expressed and implied, no covenant made by man ever rested on 
the basis of a sounder morality. They tell us that althou4h yon 
have the strict right, according to the writers on public law, to 
whom Mr. Curtis has referred, to restore the fugitive slave to his 
master, yet that the virtue of compassion comminds vou not to 
do so. But in order to enable onrstdves to do all that good, and 
avert all that evil — boundless and inappreciable both — which we 
do, and avert by the instrumentality of a Union under a common 
government, may we not, on the clearest moral principles, agree 
not to exercise compassion in that particular way ? The mere 
virtue of coinpassion would command you to rescue any prisoner. 
But the citizen, to the end that he may be enabled, and others be 
enabled, to indulge a more various and useful compassion in 
other modes, agrees not to indulge it practically in that mode. 
Is sucli a stipulation immoral? No more so is this of the Con- 
stitution. 

They tell us that slavery is so wicked a thing, that they must 
pursue it, by agitation, to its home in the states; and that if 
there is an implied engagement to abstain from doing so, it is an 
engagement to neglect an opportunity of doing good, and void 
in the forum of conscience. But was it ever heard of, that one 
may not morally bind himself to abstain from what he thinks n 
particular opportunity of doing good ? A contract in general 
restraint of philanthropy, or any other useful calling, is void ; but 
a contract to abstain from a specific sphere of exertion, is not 
void, and may be wise and right. To entitle himself to instruct 
heathen children on week days, might not a pious missionarv en- 
gage not to attem[)t to preach to tlieir parents on Sundav ? To 
win the opportunity of achievintj: the mighty good summed up in 
the pregnant language of the i)rcaml)le to the Constitution, such 
good as man has not on this earth been many times permitted to 
do or dream of, we might well surrender the privilei^e of reviling 
the masters of slaves with whom we must '• cither live or bare no 
lile." 

Will the philanthropist tell you that there is nothing conspicu- 
ous enough, and glorious enough for him. in thus refraining from 
this agitation, just because our relations to the South, under the 
Constitution, seem to forbid it? Ay, indeed! Is it even so? 
Is his morality of so ambitious and mount tig a tv[)c — that an 
effort — by the exircise of love, or kindness, o- tolerance, to knit 
6 



42 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

Still closer the hearts of a great people, and thus to insure ages of 
peace — of progress — of enjoyment — to so vast a mass of the fam- 
ily of man — seems too trivial a feat ? O ! how stupendous a 
mistake ! What achievement of philanthropy bears any propor- 
tion to the pure and permanent glory of that achievment where- 
by clusters of contiguous states, perfectly organized govern- 
ments in themselves every one, full of energy, conscious of 
strength, full of valor, fond of war— instead of growing first jeal- 
ous, then hostile — like the tribes of Greece after the Persian had 
retired — like the cities of Italy at the dawn of the modern world — 
are melted into one, so that for centuries of internal peace, the 
grand agencies of amelioration and advancement shall operate 
unimpeded ; the rain and dew of Heaven descending on ground 
better and still better prepared to admit them ; the course of 
time — the Providence of God — leading on that noiseless progress 
whose wheels shall turn not back, whose consummation shall be 
in the brightness of the latter day. What achievment of man 
may be compared with this achievment ? For the slave, alone 
what promises half so much ? And this is not glorious enough 
for the ambition of philanthropy ! 

No, fellow-citizens — first of men are^ the builders of empires ! 
Here it is, my friends, here — right here — in doing something in 
our day and generation towards '•' forming a more perfect Union" 
— in doing something by literature, by public speech, by sound 
industrial policy, by the careful culture of fraternal love and re- 
gard, by the intercourse of business and friendship, by all the 
means within our command — in doing something to leave the 
Union, when we die, stronger than we found it, — here — here is 
the field of our grandest duties and highest rewards. Let the 
grandeur of such duties — let the splendor of such rewards suffice 
us. Let them reconcile and constrain us to turn from that 
equivocal philanthropy, which violates contracts — which tramples 
on law — which confounds the whole subordination of virtues — 
which counts it a light thing that a nation is rent asunder, and 
the swords of brothers sheathed in the bosoms of brothers, if thus 
the chains of one slave may be violently and prematurely broken. 

HON. DAVID HENSHAW'S LETTER. 

Leicester, Nov. 23, 1850. 
Dear Sir — I am in receipt of your note of the ISth, requesting, 
in behalf of the Committee for making Arrangements for the 
Union meeting to be held at Faneuil Hall the 26th, that I would 
allow myself to be nominated as one of the Vice-Presidents of 
that meeting ; in reply, I have to observe that I am not sure I can 
be present at that time, but I am so fully impressed with the im- 



AT FANEUIL HALL. 43 

portance of the movoniont, so heartily interested in the cause, 
tiiat, if there, 1 shouKl most cheerfully occupy any position as- 
signed to me that might tend to promote the objects of the 
meeiinu:. 

It surely is time that all good and patriotic men, regardless of 
former divisions, sU;p forward lo sustain the Union, now assailed 
by a spirit of fanaticism, faction, and anarchy — a Union that cost 
lo establish it, the blood and treasue, the anxiety, toil and suH'eriti" 
of the revolutionary war — a Union that has given to our own 
people peace and security, wealth and prosperity, and hasatVorded 
u safe abode and a happy home to immigrants i'rom other lands. 

The slave question is made the wedge to divide us, the great 
bone of contention. Groundless complaints arc conjured up by 
artful, vigorous, and ardent minds to alarm the timid, the unin- 
formed, and misinformed, and to impel them on by fears to des- 
troy our national compart, and even our nationality, for the vain 
purpose of redressing ideal wrongs, and of removing imaginary 
evils, or evils, if real, that do not weigh on those who foment the 
excitement, and in the correction of which they have no right to 
meddle. 

In examining this slave question, it will be seen that slavery 
was planted in the American colonies by the policy and power of 
the mother country, against the wishes and remonstrances of the 
colonists ; and this condition of the two races, the white and the 
black, the condition of master and slave existed on the achieve- 
ment of our independence, and continued on the establishment 
of our nationality. In forming the present Constitution, the pre- 
existing right of the master to his slave was recognized to secure 
that right more completely, the provision was inserted for the 
surrender of slaves fleeing to other States. It was never con- 
templated in the Constitution to invade the authority of the States 
to manage their local atiairs, or the right of defining the powers, 
duties, obligations, and political condition of the residents wiihio 
their borders. 

The present generation in the slave States, both white and 
black, were born to this inh(.Mitance. The condition of master 
and slave descended to them from the colonial state, and l)C tho 
system good or evil, they are not responsible for its existence, and 
if responsible for its continuance, it is a responsibility to them- 
selves, not to us. 

The Constitution guarantees to the master the right of reclaim- 
ing his fugitive slave, and imposes upon those to whom he escapes, 
the duty of surrendering him. Here are plain Constitutional 
rights and duties, which the Act of Congress of 1793, approved 
by Washington, was intended to enforce and make effective, and 



44 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING 

which it did enforce until within a few years. When that law 
was rendered ineffective, it matters little from what cause, it be- 
came the duty of Compress to provide an efficient substitute. 
The present Fugitive Slave Bill, against which so much clamor 
has bc^n raised, and such rebellious and bloody resistance has 
been threatened, was designed for this purpose — for the purpose 
of sustaining undisputed Constitutional rights, of enforcing well- 
defined Constitutional duties ; and this result will no doubt be 
reached if the law be fairly and honestly executed, and reached, 
it is believed, without practically invading the Constitutional 
rights of any one. At any rate, until repealed, it ought to be 
obeyed and enforced. Fearful indeed, would be the conse(]uences 
to our colored population, if blood sliould be shed, as some have 
rashly advised, in resistance to its execution. 

If our Constitutional duties to give up the slave be thus im- 
perative, is not a sound and wise policy equally urgent to keep 
the colored population from us? Do we want in any way to en- 
courage the immigration of the colored people? Wliat would 
be the effect on the white population of this State of the influx 
of half a million of negroes, possessing all the political rights of 
the white man? It could not be otherwise than disastrous, per- 
haps fatal, to one or the other race ; for experience teaches that 
the two races catmot exist together on terms of equality — equality 
of numbers and of rights. Strife, if not bloodshed, would inevit- 
ably follow such a condition of our population, until the superior 
race obtained the mastery. In St. Domingo and Liberia, where 
the negro bears rule, he yields to the white man no political 
power. 

The dav-laborer, the farmer, the mechanic, all men wiio labor — 
the merchant, the capitalist, all who pay taxes are interested in 
excluding the colored population, that labor may not be degraded 
and capital burdened by contact w^ith an ignorant, improvident, 
inferior race, with whom it is politically and physically impossible 
for the white man to amalgamate. 

The clamor raised and the alarm intended to be created against 
what is termed the slave power, and against slave territory, have 
ever appeared to me to be quite useless for good. There is no 
such thing in our Government as the "slave power," and no such 
power exists in any way, further than a similarity of interests, 
or a common danger, may produce a concert of action to protect 
similar rights. The slave interest, so far as political power is 
concerned, is as intangible as that of the landed interest, the 
money interest, or the commercial interest. The fact that in the 
compromises of the Constitution, the slave population, on the re- 
stricted ratio, is an ingredient in the basis of representation. 



AT TAN'ErrL HALL. 45 

uilliout possessing; itself political powrr, is rrallv in derogation 
of slave power; and is surely no more ol)noxious t«) censure, 
than that wonicn, children, aliens, and paiipers are ingredients in 
the basis of representation, without the ri<;ht of votint; themselves. 

'I'hen, again, the eti'ort to exclude slavery fronj the terri:«trics, 
ly an act of CoMi^rcss. >ecms to have had more im|)ortanc<; at- 
tached to it than it merits. We admit the rii^dit in tlie Slates of 
the Union to manage their local aHhirs in their own way, to define 
the rights, duties, and obligations of their residents; and why 
not yield this right, this common sense j>rinci[ile, to the people 
who setde the territories, to those who are immediatelv. if not 
c.vclusively, interested in these regulations? The objects pro- 
posed to be attained by the Wilmot Proviso are to prevent the 
increase of slaves and to im|)rove their condition by confining 
slavery to its present geographical limits. But the present slave 
territory is capable ol sustaining ten limes the present slave popu- 
lation, and hence the profiosed measure would have little etVect, 
for many generations to come, in checking the increase; of slaves ; 
but if it would have, the questicMi would present itself as to the 
moral right of restraining, by legal regulations, the natural increase 
of this branch of the human family. Anel surelv it can harellv 
be expected to improve the condition of the slaves by jiacking 
them clf»sc. 

Much has been written of the alleged cruel treatment of the 
slaves, to awaken, for political etiect, the tenderest sympathies of 
the human heart ; and no doubt there are cases of cruel o|)[)res- 
sion, but which it is not our right nor our business, Don Quixote 
like, to attempt to relieve. But after all, here stands the great, 
})rominent, credible fact, that while other slaveholding countries 
could only keep up their slave population from the wear and 
waste of hard labor and ill usa<:e by fresh and continued impor- 
tations from Africa, the col6red |-,opuIation of the United States, 
during more than forty years of non-importation, have increased, 
since the Declaration of Independence, some four-fold, a conclu- 
sive proof that in the main they are well used. 

Immediate emancipation, if it could be effected, with the con- 
sent of the master, the free negro population remaining with tlic 
white, it is believoel would conduce to the benefit of neither race, 
the white or the black. 

The capacity of the negro race for a high state of improve- 
ment and civilization remains to be tested. The negio has been 
in ce^ntact with the while race since the bible times without 
improving his condition, or advancing his own country in the 
scale of civilization. He seems to have made no progress in 
Africa in three thousand years ; and it is a qustion whether he 



46 CONSTITUTIONAL MEETING AT FANEUIL HALL. 

has not attained in servitude a higher state of civiHzation than 
he could have reached in Africa from his innate resources alone. 
The ways of Divine Providence are often inscrutable to the 
human eye, and time may yet show that this system of slavery 
is but a state of probation and preparation of the black race for 
a higher political and social condition — it may yet prove that by 
extensively colonizing our colored population in Africa, that vast 
region of the globe may be redeemed from barbarism, may 
become civilized and Christianized ; and that the amazing, but 
as yet dormant resources of that great segment of the earth, may 
be brought to light, and be developed for the good of the human 
races. 

At any rate, a high and imperative duty, a wise and sound 
policy demand of us the fulfilment of all our Constitutional obliga- 
tions. Every attempt to evade these obligations, to resist the 
laws for enforcing them, should be frowned d(rwn, repressed by 
the irresistible force of public opinion. The fair fabric of our 
Government, our glorious Union, glorious for the good it has 
done and the happiness it still promises, the hope of man the 
world over, must be sustained at all hazards ; and for one, I am 
prepared to make this the paramount political object, superior to 
party ties, above local and personal considerations. 

Very respectfully. 

Your obedient Servant, 

DAVID HEN SHAW. 
Hon. Francis C. Gray, and the Committee. 

REV. DR. BLAGDEN'S LETTER. 

Boston, JSov. 21th, 1850. 
N. Hale and T. B. Curtis, Esc^rs. — 

Gentlemen — I regret that my absence at Cambridge, yesterday, 
as one of a Committee for examining a Class in the University, 
deprived me of the pleasure of seeing you. 

I did not return until half after four o'clock. Otherwise I 
should not have failed to be present at the place and time 
named on your card. 

Every consideration of religion, and of patriotism, I am accus- 
tomed to regard, would have induced me, when requested, to 
invoke the blessing of God on the meeting to which you invited 
me. Yours, with great respect, 

G. W. BLAGDEN. 



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